Mahmoud, the nurse working in the hospital in the north, concludes, “the medical system is a place of equality between Arabs and Jews, both for staff and for patients. But outside of the medical system, Arabs are discriminated against in many ways. We have needed systemic solutions to create greater equality for a long time, and now we realize that we needed them even more.”
For the vast majority of Americans, the potential collapse of our public health systems and predictions of economic Armageddon have left us frightened and uncertain. But there are some who have found a silver lining in our coronavirus fears: the conspiracy theorists, the racists and the anti-Semites.
The possibility of a full outbreak of the COVID-19 virus in the Gaza Strip is both likely and terrifying. More than two million people, over half of them children, live in the 139-square-mile area, one of the world’s most highly-populated regions. Unemployment stands at 52 percent and half of the population lives in poverty. Much of the housing and 97 percent of Gaza’s water is unfit for human consumption, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
“Unusual times call for unusual measures, so it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise when a key aide to the president of the United States convenes a conference call with leading ultra-Orthodox rabbis, only to urge them to follow government instructions.”—Nathan Guttman
