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Jazz ShawPosted at 11:01 am on January 3, 2021
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Even as Israel has enjoyed rapprochement with several Arab states that have traditionally been enemies over the past year, they’ve also been hit hard by the pandemic, as have most nations of the world. But the government’s response and efforts to slow the spread of the disease has been significantly different than what we’ve seen in the United States. America has had more than its share of lockdowns and quarantines, along with reminders to engage in social distancing and contact tracing. But the Israelis have taken the idea of contact tracing to an entirely new level. As this report from the Associated Press explains, Israel’s citizens have endured a level of scrutiny that has democracy advocates up in arms. A cellphone location tracking tool normally used to identify and detain terrorists cooperating with the Palestinians was unleashed on the entire country’s population. The stated purpose was to determine who had been in close proximity to people who tested positive for the novel coronavirus, but the intrusive nature of the tool has left many people alarmed.