Unfounded rumors and conspiratorial thinking

h, however.

“We’re not so optimistic. They’ve tried to make phone calls and get people to show up and be vaccinated, but there was little response. People are still scared,” said Sheikh Jarrah clinic director Dima Bitar, a member of Clalit’s Jerusalem coronavirus command center.

The Beit Hanina clinic was one of four new vaccination centers that Clalit opened in East Jerusalem on Tuesday — the others were in Sur Baher; near the Old City’s Damascus Gate; and in Musrara on the seam between East and West Jerusalem. Previously, a clinic in Sheikh Jarrah had been the only place to get the vaccine in East Jerusalem.

Everyone offers different explanations for the low demand for the shot, but most officials agree that unfounded rumors and conspiratorial thinking have taken hold among some East Jerusalem Palestinians….

Fear about the vaccine’s long-term effects can range from the mild to the extreme, according to Bitar.

“Many are telling one another conspiracy theories: they want to kill us, they want to sterilize us, this will distort our genetic sequences. I’ve been getting some very strange questions. I even have employees here, in this clinic, convincing one another not to get vaccinated,” she said.

The reason for the different rates of vaccination for Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem, then, would appear to be caused by ill-informed rumours and conspiracy theories circulating among the Arab population – not by any particular anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian animus on the part of the Israeli authorities.

If the Guardian gets hold of this story, mind, I can see how that little detail might get lost in the glee with which they'll report the basic figures – "Only 20 percent of Palestinian East Jerusalem residents over the age of 60 have been vaccinated, compared to about 75 percent of Jews over 60 in the city as a whole".