“Netanyahu understood months ago that the development of a vaccine was the only way that the world and Israel could resolve the COVID-19 crisis — and the only way he could win the elections and survive," a high-level political source who asked to remain anonymous told Al-Monitor. "He was so focused on this that it was scary: he did not let up, did not stop, was really obsessive. He didn’t even blink vis-à-vis the ultra-Orthodox camp about inoculating people on the Sabbath — and no one turned it into a crisis.”
The source, who was privy to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s actions and behind-the-scenes lobbying, compared the prime minister to an “attack dog.” Netanyahu personally supervised the financial negotiations with the pharmaceutical companies, including late-night phone calls to the CEOs of the Pfizer and Moderna companies and to the relevant Israeli health and finance officials, working to cut through red tape and allocate the necessary budgets.
