“Palestinians left waiting as Israel is set to deploy COVID-19 vaccine,” ran the headline of an Associated Press report last month. Not to be outdone, the notoriously anti-Israel newspaper the Guardian carried a story on Sunday under the headline “Palestinians excluded from Israeli COVID vaccine rollout as jabs go to settlers.” While it is indeed true that the Jewish state has vaccinated its citizens against the coronavirus at a record rate, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas—like many governments—have not yet begun to do so, framing these facts as an injustice done by Jews to Arabs is misleading to the point of slander. Lahav Harkov explains:

You have to get halfway through the Guardian story before you reach the following: . . . “the [Palestinian] Authority has not officially asked for help from Israel. Coordination between the two sides halted last year after the Palestinian president cut off security ties for several months.” In other words, the Palestinian leadership refused even to talk to Israel when the latter was ordering vaccine doses, let alone coordinate a complex rollout operation.

Here are some other pertinent facts: the Oslo Accords, though a group of interim agreements and not a final-status peace treaty, are widely considered a legally binding agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. They stipulate that the Palestinian Authority is responsible for healthcare, including vaccinations, for Palestinians in Judea and Samaria and Gaza. The PA has been keeping its end of the bargain on that front for nearly 30 years, something that news outlets whose reporters constantly quote the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry’s reports of damage inflicted by Israel surely already know.

Also a fact: Israel is actually already vaccinating Palestinians—the ones in east Jerusalem. [Moreover], Israel’s vaccine operation has run in predominately Arab areas in Israel from day one.

Why have so many supposedly respectable outlets gotten this story wrong? . . . In this particular case, it looks like some reporters are being led by the nose by activists with a certain point of view.

Before exploding electronics in Lebanon seized the attention of the Israeli public, debate there had focused on the Philadelphi Corridor—the strip of land between Gaza and Egypt—and whether the IDF can afford to withdraw from it. Egypt has opposed Israeli control of the corridor, which is crucial to Hamas’s supply lines, and Egyptian objections likely prevented Israel from seizing it earlier in the war. Yet, argues Mariam Wahba, Egypt in the long run only stands to lose by letting Hamas use the corridor, and has proved incapable of effectively sealing it off:

Ultimately, this moment presents an opportunity for the United States to hold Egypt’s feet to the fire.

To press Cairo, the United States should consider conditioning future aid on Cairo’s willingness to cooperate. This should include a demand for greater transparency and independent oversight to verify Egyptian claims about the tunnels. Congress ought to hold hearings to understand better Egypt’s role and its compliance as a U.S. ally. Despite Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s nine trips to the Middle East since the start of the war, there has been little clarity on how Egypt intends to fulfill its role as a mediator.

By refusing to acknowledge Israel’s legitimate security concerns, Egypt is undermining its own interests, prolonging the war in Gaza, and further destabilizing its relationship with Jerusalem. It is time for Egyptian leaders either to admit their inability to secure the border and seek help from Israel and America, or to risk being perceived as enablers of Hamas and its terrorist campaign.