Neutrality Doesn't Apply To Jews
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...
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...
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
