India/Israel, A Tale of Two Nations

"One of the countries in which the pandemic is spreading brutally is our friend India. On behalf of all ministers and citizens of Israel, I would like to send our condolences to my friend, Indian PM Modi, and to the citizens of India over the tragic loss of life happening there. I have instructed the head of the National Security Council to render such assistance as may be requested. I hope that there will be an international effort, in which Israel is ready to be a full partner, to stop this tragedy."

"We are ahead of all other countries vis-à-vis the rate of fully vaccinating our citizens and this is very impressive. Even as we rejoice here, we still understand that large sections of humanity are suffering greatly. In any case, we are ready to help with whatever may be necessary."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

 

There is great friendship, recognition and empathy between Israel and India. One, a tiny state whose presence on the world stage is both a rebuke to the world where diaspora Jews have always been marginalized, held in contempt, ostracized, denied official status, villainized and persecuted through the ages to the present time. In returning to its historical Judaic homeland, reclaiming its heritage and geography, Jews throughout the world are invited to return to a place of welcome, safety and security.

That, in any event, is the purpose and reason for the re-establishment of the State of Israel. Propelled by a 20th Century genocide of state-organized annihilation of Europe's Jews that was so successful, 80 years later the global Jewish population has not been able to match its numbers pre-Holocaust. The first reaction of Israel's Middle East neighbours was rejection of its presence, and exile of the millions of Jews who had lived in adjoining countries for thousands of years.

In the same year that Israel reasserted itself as a sovereign nation, India was torn apart when its Muslim population asserting a need for its own sovereignty on religious grounds, saw Pakistan born as Britain withdrew as a colonial power. Just as Israel in its infancy was met with conflict when the combined armies of some of its neighbours sought to destroy the nascent state, the division of India resulted in a paroxycsm of deadly violence between Hindus and Muslims with the exchange of populations.

Israel has lived ever since 1948 with the presence of two governments, led by Fatah and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip whose aim is to destroy Israel's presence and claim the entire geography that was offered through a Partition plan by the United Nations which Jews accepted and the Palestinians declined. Pakistan's ongoing hostility of a most incendiary, deadly nature, fed by both countries claiming Kashmir as their own, reflects an intractable enmity constantly threatening India with terrorist attacks and war, just as Israel faces the same from its Palestinian neighbours.

Both Hindu-dominated India and Judaic Israel have similar cultural values, and both are democracies. Israel's small size and its central government has made possible by a far-sighted prime minister, a swift response to the deadly coronavirus that is ravishing the globe's human populations. An agreement with a leading manufacturer of pharmaceuticals which had successfully tailored a vaccine against COVID provided Israel with a sufficient quantity of vaccine doses to undertake a huge and speedy vaccination of its population.

Israel's population size of 9 million people, can hardly be compared to India's massive 1.3 billion population, an unwieldy number in a large geography with varied languages, ethnic groups, cultures and lifestyle mode. Three quarters of India's population lives rurally and traditionally. Although India is one of the world's leading vaccine manufacturers the logistics involved in speedily vaccinating such an immense population is mind-boggling. Culture and tradition inform the Indian way of life, as does the size of the population leading to intensely crowded communal living conditions.

While Israel's population is now wildly celebrating its timely rescue from the stifling confinement brought on by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, opening restaurants and places of entertainment and Israelis may now socialize unmasked in public with life returning to normal in an atmosphere of herd immunity, India, teeming with humanity in its great crowded metropoli and countrysides alike, is in the throes of an utterly uncontrolled massive invasion of a deadly pathogen.

"We were quickly vaccinating the population, and at the same time, we were dealing with huge numbers every day. And then all of a sudden, there was a breaking point [when the 'R number' trended low]", explained Israel's Health Minister Yuli Edlstein. "You are reaching a threshold that is very close to herd immunity. We're seeing an explosion of other patients now -- everyone who was afraid to come in [to hospital] before [now arriving for mundane medical procedures]", said Yoram Weiss, director of Jerusalem's Hadassah University Medical Center.

A hospital staff member checks oxygen cylinders inside a hospital in Srinagar, India-controlled Kashmir, on Sunday. India’s crematoriums and burial grounds are being overwhelmed by the devastating new surge of infections tearing through the populous country with terrifying speed, depleting the supply of life-saving oxygen to critical levels and leaving patients to die while waiting in line to see doctors. (Mukhtar Khan/The Associated Press)

This, at a time when India has been forced to stop exporting vaccines to sources outside the country to conserve it for desperately needed vaccinations throughout its own interior. When the hospitals already crowded beyond saturation are running out of oxygen and are unable to treat seriously ill COVID patients. When extemporary sites in public parks, parking lots and anywhere else available are being turned into vast cremation sites.

India's new coronavirus infections hit a record peak for a fifth day, reporting 352,991 cases in the last 24 hours, with the overwhelmed graveyards and crematoriums a stark symbol of the crisis. Here, health workers and relatives carry the body of a COVID-19 victim for cremation in Jammu, India, on Monday. (Channi Anand/The Associated Press)