Watch and Listen

On December 9, 2020, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and minister of health, Yuli-Yoel Edelstein, waited at the Ben-Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv to greet the first shipment of Pfizer vaccines (Fig. 1). In front of the cameras, the prime minister assured the citizens of Israel that he would be the first in the country to get the vaccination. He was not happy with the visual result, apparently, because the next day the two revisited the airport to welcome the second shipment and get a second photo-op (Fig. 2). A comparison of the photos makes it clear that the second picture was taken because the second carrier was an El Al aircraft. Rather than the yellow-and-red colors of the DHL plane that dominate the visual record of the first visit, the second one has the blue-and-white Israeli flag painted on its vertical stabilizer. In addition, in the first photo-op the two politicians stand on a portable staircase, watching from a distance as the shipment is removed from the aircraft, whereas in the picture taken one day later Netanyahu and Edelstein stand closer to the boxes, and the prime minister's left hand tightly clutches the ropes that are wrapped around the packages.

On the evening of December 19, after the Sabbath was over, Netanyahu was the first person in Israel to receive the vaccine against Covid-19. Edelstein was second. The event was broadcast live at prime time on all the Israeli TV channels (Fig. 3). It was evident that the syringe used to inject the prime minister's right shoulder was not carefully discarded following its use. Contradicting safety rules, Netanyahu's personal physician, who had given him the vaccine, put the syringe's cap back on, suggesting that the medical device was spoken for and that the idea to preserve it was already in the air. A month later, on January 18, 2021, Netanyahu posted a short video on social media revealing that he had indeed saved the syringe; it was installed inside a transparent case and displayed in his office. This triggered my thoughts.