Neutrality Doesn’t Apply To Jews

By
Omri Ceren
– February 12, 2004Posted in: Anti-Israel Diplomacy

This is one very good reason to be suspicious of international organizations:


Israel has never been admitted to full membership in the International Committee of the Red Cross… The pretext thus far was Magen David Adom’s refusal to replace its red Star of David with either the cross or crescent… Only the Jewish state’s first-aid services are required to operate under the emblems of others, which are either historically or currently inimical to its citizens.

But the Star of David (arguably the oldest national-religious symbol currently in use in the world) is just an excuse:


Top ICRC officials recently told MDA delegates that it would take “progress in the peace process” to persuade member states to approve the MDA’s inclusion and recognition of its emblem.

What is ostensibly supposed to be the world’s most neutral international organization – an organization that 176 nations are members of and that has in the past accepted even the Iranian Red Lion and Sun – is demanding that Israel appease its enemies in order to be recogized. You might think that Israel is in the wrong on virtually every international issue, but surely the organization that is literally built on neutrality shouldn’t be taking sides.

And the most frustrating thing is that some people still think that if Israel meets this or that demand, it will get legitimacy. As if the peace process is not just an excuse – as if the Red Cross did not deny Israel membership well before 1967 (in 1949 to be exact). If Israel was actually to make sustained progress on the peace process (whatever that means), does anyone doubt that the Red Cross would move the goalposts again (to paying impossible reparations, or to allowing Israeli Arabs to secede, or to whatever).

Not angry enough? How about the fact that…

  • The Palestinian Red Crescent repeatedly has been nailed for using ambulances to transport explosives and suicide belts (up to and including hiding them under pregnant women – the possibility of speed bumps apparently never occurred to these geniuses).

    One and only one of the following is true:

    (a) The Red Cross condemned the Palestinian Red Crescent for this blatant violation of international law and every humanitarian norm

    (b) The Red Cross revoked the membership of the Palestinian Red Crescent for this blatant violation of international law and every humanitarian norm

    (c) The Red Cross condemned Israel for stopping and searching the ambulance in which the explosives were found

  • In March 2000, ICRC ex-chief Cornelio Sommaruga opined “If we’re going to have the Shield of David, why would we not have to accept the swastika?” Cornelio was later tapped by the UN for the Jenin fact-finding mission, which Israel then in-explicably labeled as biased.
  • Palestinians routinely target Magen David Adom ambulances. There’s a Dejafoo cookie in it for anyone who can find any Red Cross statement about this war crime routinely committed by Palestinians.
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