Kurz, who visited Israel with his Danish counterpart to discuss a trilateral vaccine treaty, attributed to Netanyahu that he was shocked into action at the start of the Covid-19 outbreak. After talks and a tour of a gym open to those vaccinated or recovered from Covid-19, Austria, Denmark and Israel have announced an alliance to provide long-term vaccines.
“I will never forget the beginning of the year 2020, when we had a call and Bibi Netanyahu told me that this virus would be a major threat to the whole world, to Europe, even if we do not know it yet. “Kurz said.” You may have been the reason why we acted in Austria quite early when the first wave hit us hard in the European Union. ”
Early in the pandemic, Netanyahu realized that vaccines could save not only Israel but also its political future.
Netanyahu has promoted himself for years as the man who turned Israel into a global technological powerhouse. Now, as he faces a fourth election in two years and an ongoing corruption trial, the prime minister is setting his record for turning Israel from ‘Start-up Nation’ into ‘Vaccination Nation’.
Netanyahu has personalized Israel’s handling of the pandemic, and in particular its robust vaccination: it appears in the early weeks of the pandemic almost every night in television addresses to the country, while obsessively negotiating vaccination deals with pharmaceutical companies and the received first doses at Tel Aviv. airport and vaccinated on primetime TV.
As Israelis head to the polls on Tuesday, life begins to feel normal again, with schools in session and restaurants reopening.
The question now is whether, with the return to normalcy, Netanyahu voters will give enough credit to dispel the political timetable that has gripped the country over the past two years.
“In politics, you judge the leader on the outcome, how the leader handled the crisis and the outcome,” said Aviv Bushinsky, a former Netanyahu media adviser. In the case of the vaccination program, he added: “the Israelites are very happy.”
A strong start knocked down by thrusts
The coronavirus pandemic played along with a political crisis in Israel. The first increase in infections took place last March, just a few weeks after the third election in a year in the country, and Netanyahu was forming a coalition with his rival, Benny Gantz.
As the Austrian chancellor noted, Netanyahu acted swiftly to combat the outbreak, publicly warning of the dangers of the virus and effectively shutting down Israel before the country even recorded its first death.
Mobile huts deployed in the streets made Covid-19 tests easily accessible. Some people with mild cases of the virus have been sent to state-run isolation facilities, often converted hotels, to recover. Passover, one of the most important Jewish holidays where families gather in large groups for a large moral meal, was essentially canceled after the Israelites were forbidden to gather or travel in groups.
In May, after nearly a year and a half of political stalemate, Netanyahu finally had his coalition government in place, with an unprecedented number of cabinet ministers and deputies. And when infection rates dropped, the government began allowing public life to return. On top of that, it looks like Israel finished the first round. While countries like Italy recorded tens of thousands of deaths by May, Israel was less than 300 at that time.
But as people relegated to restaurants and events like weddings, so did the virus.
In September, Israel had the largest per capita infection in the world, and the country was embroiled in a political battle over who was to blame.
Professor Eran Segal of the Weizmann Institute of Science of Israel praised the government’s initial response, but told CNN that the errors began after the first closure. A reluctance at various points to enforce targeted restrictions at the local level, especially in ultra-Orthodox and Arab neighborhoods, may have helped spread the virus, Segal said.
“Probably for various reasons, I think many political reasons, we failed to contain the distributions where it took place,” Segal said.
Segal also criticized the government’s litmus test during the summer for exclusions – 800 simultaneously critically ill patients could cause a shutdown. If Israel took earlier exclusions, there would be fewer deaths and a shorter general closure period, he said.
The remark showed just a few days later a strikingly different tone than that of President Reuven Rivlin, when Israel’s head of state carelessly apologized to the people.
“I know we as leadership have not done enough to deserve your attention. You trusted us and we let you down,” Rivlin said. “You, the citizens of Israel, deserve a safety net that the country gives you. Decision-makers, government ministries, policy-makers must work for you and only for you – to save lives, to reduce pollution, to save the economy. I understand the feeling that none of this has been done satisfactorily. ‘
As the end of 2020 approached, with Israel facing a third wave of infections, the Israeli Knesset renounced efforts to pass a budget that led to the dissolution of parliament and the election of caused this year. Netanyahu’s critics, including his coalition partner Gantz, suspected that the prime minister had never intended the current government to last long, and by this time the Israeli leader could only see his political salvation coming around the corner.
To ‘bring Israel back to life’
Netanyahu early on insisted on Israel being one of the first countries to receive Covid-19 vaccines, boasting that he was in regular contact with the major pharmaceutical companies and their CEOs.
Although he signed an early agreement with Moderna, it was the special agreement with Pfizer – and the Jewish CEO, Albert Bourla – that clinched Israel’s place as a world leader. Israel paid a heavy price and quickly got the vaccines, and in return, Pfizer provided access to data from Israel’s centralized healthcare system to study the vaccine’s effectiveness. Israel has not specified the exact price per person for the Pfizer vaccine, but a parliamentary committee revealed this week that the country has already paid 2.6 billion shekels ($ 787 million) for ‘various vaccine transactions’ and expects a to spend similar amount. amount for more in the future.
But Netanyahu is doing everything in his power to own the vaccination program and its success, making it a central part of his new positive and constructive ‘live’ campaign – a clear departure from the previous election, Bushinsky said.
“In recent years, the Netanyahu campaign has always leaned or taken advantage of the fear campaign: if Netanyahu is not there, the Iranians will develop the bomb, or Hamas will become stronger, or Hezbollah will attack,” Bushinsky said. “I think this is the first election Netanyahu is running, that he is not using the fear campaign, but the hope campaign.”
Time and happiness were also on Netanyahu’s side. With the vaccination program starting at the end of December, Netanyahu had at least three months between the first injection and election day – enough time for the majority of the population to be vaccinated and get a taste of normalcy under the country’s “green pace”. “program. https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/israel-vaccine-green-pass-wellness/index.html
“Some say Netanyahu, the god touched him, that he is rich in happiness,” Bushinsky said. “Imagine that the election was a few months ago when most people were not vaccinated.”
Tzachi Hanegbi, a cabinet minister who has served with Netanyahu for decades, said he thinks Israelis will reward Netanyahu for how he handled the virus.
“I do believe that people after the corona year were really exposed to the abilities of the prime minister who brought Israel out of the Covid-19 with new expectations, vaccination to which everyone is entitled and millions of Israelites are already free of corona. result will reflect, ‘Hanegbi said.
Netanyahu, Hanegbi said, has an “inner feeling that you are there because God sent you to save the people of Israel and to lead them through difficult times.”
“I think it gives him the power and the support of the people. It’s called charisma. ‘
CNN’s Oren Lieberman contributed to this report.