Add your name to tell U.S. governors and U.S. Secretary of State Blinken: Across the United States and in Palestine, we need equitable vaccine distributions.

To: U.S. governors and U.S. Secretary of State Blinken

Across the United States and the world, the pandemic has worsened and exposed pre-existing racial disparities. Now, the same people who’ve been disproportionately harmed by the pandemic are being left behind in vaccinations.

For long before the pandemic, Palestinians and Black Americans have had a common experience of being second-class citizens neglected by their own governments. The Israeli government’s policies against Palestinians draw comparisons to the United States’ Jim Crow-era racist segregation laws and today's systemic targeting by the American justice system.

Despite fully vaccinating more than half its own citizens already and drawing international praise for the world’s fastest vaccine rollout, the Israeli government is refusing to purchase or distribute vaccines for Palestinians under its control.

For example, the government has vaccinated hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens who live in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, while refusing to vaccinate Palestinians who live just across the street or in neighboring villages.

This is medical apartheid, and it’s unacceptable.

While the Israeli government is donating extra vaccines to faraway countries, nearly all of the 5 million Palestinians under occupation have yet to receive a vaccine, despite living mere feet away. Israel has only recently pledged to provide a few thousand vaccines, far short of meeting the need.

As the occupying power for more than 50 years, Israel has not only a moral responsibility to protect Palestinians from the virus, but also a legal responsibility under the Geneva Conventions, the bedrock of international humanitarian law.

Enduring rapidly rising COVID cases, Palestinians have lacked access to testing, masks, gloves, and medical equipment (all imports under Israel’s control). Even if Israel assists the Palestinian territories with vaccine purchases, it must also help occupied territories with the technical capacity to distribute and administer the vaccine. For example, vaccines need very cold storage for consistent periods of time, but in Gaza, electricity is only available for 4-8 hours a day.

Through financial/military aid and encouragement, the United States is enabling Israel’s medical apartheid. The U.S. must hold Israel accountable to international human rights, including using our aid money as leverage, to ensure Israel provides not only vaccines but a complete vaccination program for all Palestinians subject to their occupation.

Within our own borders, the United States government is also overseeing an inequitable vaccine rollout.

Long neglected by our government, Black people in America have borne the brunt of the COVID pandemic’s health and economic crises. Black Americans are three times more likely than white Americans to be hospitalized and twice as likely to die from COVID-19 than white Americans.

And now, white Americans are getting vaccinated at twice the rate of Black Americans.

Although the majority of Black people in the U.S. plan to get the vaccine (as compared to the majority of white Republicans, who do not plan to get it), many are facing disparities in access.

For example, Black people are less likely to have reliable internet access for the mostly-online signup process, less likely to have access to reliable transportation to predominately drive-through vaccine centers, and more likely to live farther from vaccine centers than white Americans do. Black Americans are also disproportionately working in frontline essential positions, where employees may not have flexible schedules or the ability to take time off to get a vaccine.

At the state level, governors must address these racial disparities and ensure swift distribution to the most vulnerable and hardest-hit communities. State systems must also take care in implementation to avoid exploitation—for example, a California program meant to increase vaccine availability for Black residents ended up getting misused by wealthy white residents.

As signers of this letter, we want just and equitable vaccine distribution across the United States and the world. Everyone deserves to live, and to live with human dignity.

We cannot tolerate these egregious, racist injustices and disparities any longer—neither for Palestinians nor Black Americans. We affirm that Palestinians and Black folks deserve dignity and the ability to live and thrive just like anyone else.