The Economist - USA (2020-03-28)

(Antfer) #1

44 Middle East & Africa The EconomistMarch 28th 2020


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s bordersclose, businessesshut and
muchof theworld adjuststo being
lockeddown,residentsofGazacan only
lookonwithgrimamusement.Isolation is
nothingnewfortheterritory’s2mPalestin-
ians.Theyhavebeenunderblockade since
2007, when Hamas, a militant group,
seizedpowerafterwinninga majority in
legislativeelections.IsraelandEgypt have
largelycutoffthemovementofgoods and
peopleinandoutofGaza.
Itisnotatotallockdown:Gazans are
freeto moveabouttheir sliverof land,
whichmeasures 365 squarekilometres (140
squaremiles).Butfewcanventureany far-
ther.Lastyear,onaverage,just 740 people
wereabletoleaveGazaeachday.
“Fourteendaysofisolation?Welcome
toourlast 14 years,”goesonejokemaking
theroundsonmessagingapps.Anunem-
ployed graduate, desperate to emigrate,
quipsthathisPalestinianpassportis at last
worththesameasa Europeanone.Another
laughsatvideosofWesternerspanic-buy-
ingthewronggoods—perishablefood, in-
comprehensibleamountsof toilet roll—
andjokesaboutstartinganonlinecourse
toteachproperstockpiling.
AsthevirussweptthroughIsrael and
theoccupiedWestBank,though,the re-
strictionsturnedGazaintoa reverse cordon
sanitaire. Residentswondered,with a sort
ofbitter optimism,whethertheir plight
wouldsparethemfromacrisisthat has
paralysedmuchoftheworld.
No longer.On March 21stthehealth
ministry announced the territory’s first

two cases of covid-19. The patients had re-
turned two days earlier from Pakistan, via
the Rafah crossing with Egypt. Days later
another seven cases were confirmed, all
members of the security forces who had
met the returnees. Officials said all the pa-
tients were isolated. Still, they took no
chances. Restaurants and cafés have been
closed and Friday prayers cancelled.
An outbreak would be catastrophic.
Gaza is one of the world’s most densely
populated places. The health-care system,
shattered by the long blockade, would be
unable to cope. Even in normal times, basic
items like antibiotics are often in short
supply. The territory has just 62 ventilators,
or three for every 100,000 people. At least a
quarter of them are already in use. Beds in
intensive-care wards are similarly scarce.
So are doctors, because scores of them have
emigrated recently.
The virus has begun to pop up in other
ravaged corners of the Middle East as well.
For weeks Syria insisted that it had been
spared the scourge of covid-19. Few Syrians
believed this, given the number of people
travelling back and forth to Iran, home to
one of the world’s worst outbreaks. But on
March 22nd the government logged the
country’s first official case. It stopped pub-
lic transport and imposed a curfew. Worse
still would be an epidemic in Idlib, the last
big rebel-held pocket, where 3m people live
in dire conditions. Libya announced its
first case of covid-19 on March 24th.
These countries may never know the
full extent of their outbreaks. Doctors in
Gaza say they received only about 200 kits
to test for the virus. Most have already been
used. They are pleading with Israel and the
whoto send more, but it is unclear when,
or if, they will. More than 1,400 people,
many of them recently returned from
abroad, have been crammed into schools
turned makeshift isolation centres, sleep-
ing six or eight to a classroom—a quaran-
tine within an open-air jail. 7

BEIRUT
TheresidentsofGazarespondwith
darkhumour

Covid-19reachesGaza

Quarantinewhile


undersiege


Stealing a peek at the pandemic

Abdelmadjid Tebboune, Algeria’s presid-
ent. Jordan limited the number of journal-
ists allowed to report outside, even before
it recorded any deaths from the virus. Egypt
banned a correspondent from theGuard-
ian, a British newspaper, after she cited Ca-
nadian epidemiologists who think the out-
break in Egypt is worse than the
government says. Arabs increasingly rely
on state broadcasters, which deliver slant-
ed news and questionable data alongside
public-health announcements.
Even in the region’s freest country, Isra-
el, there is concern that the government is
overstepping. Binyamin Netanyahu, the
prime minister, has ordered his spooks to
use phone surveillance technology to track
Israeli citizens in an effort to curb the
spread of the virus. Some Israelis worry
that this power will be abused. Mr Netanya-
hu and his allies are also accused of using
the outbreak to delay his trial on corrup-
tion charges and keep him in office, as ne-
gotiations over a new government contin-
ue. “He is doing his utmost to exploit the
opportunity the coronavirus introduced,”
says Yohanan Plesner of the Israel Democ-
racy Institute, a think-tank.
Elsewhere, though, draconian meas-
ures have been greeted with praise. As the
virus spread, the hashtag “declare a state of
emergency” trended on Twitter in the re-
gion. According to Ipsos, a pollster, 98% of
Jordanians think their government is do-
ing a “good” or “very good” job. They are
seemingly happy with a new law that al-
lows the king to seize private property, de-
tain anyone who threatens public order
and screen all media before publication.
Even anti-government activists are sound-
ing supportive. “Sometimes human rights
and public-health needs clash,” says one in
Morocco, which is under lockdown.
Social distancing has meant that the
large anti-government protests rocking
countries such as Algeria, Lebanon and
Iraq have fizzled away for now. Opponents
in the region are getting along better, too.
Israel and the Palestinians are co-operat-
ing, to an extent, in the face of a common
enemy. The United Arab Emirates and Ku-
wait have offered aid to Iran.
The calm may not last, though. The pan-
demic has hit the region’s economic main-
stays, such as tourism and remittances,
while a collapse in the price of oil has cut
into government revenues, putting public-
sector jobs at risk. Meanwhile, the whois
casting doubt on the outbreak data coming
from governments in the region. Insuffi-
cient testing means the number of infected
people is undoubtedly higher than the offi-
cial tallies. Most health systems are not
equipped to deal with a large outbreak. As
more people fall ill, the region’s authoritar-
ians may regret having long spent more on
their armies and security services than on
hospitals and medical supplies. 7
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