Tuesday, November 1, 2005
Is one of the major black-marks on the record of the International Committee of the Red Cross about to come to an end?
Globes Online: Magen David Adom to join Red Cross in December
Calmy-Rey informed Shalom that she intends to issue invitations in the coming days to an international diplomatic conference at the senior official and ambassadorial level, to which 192 countries would be invited, including the Vatican.
The purpose of the conference, which is to take place in Geneva at the beginning of December, is to ratify the addition of Israel's Magen David Adom to the International Committee of the Red Cross as a life-saving organization.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that this is an important achievement for Israel's many diplomatic efforts in recent years to gain recognition of Magen David Adom as a life-saving organization.
Shalom said that it is necessary to continue to act with determination and not surrender to the extortion of the Arab countries and Palestinian elements that are trying to impose all sorts of demands as a condition for their agreement to the Red Cross move...
You can thank the American Red Cross for that and I would imagine member so the Bush admin (?) behind the scenes. They should send a dozen roses to the old chair of the American Red Cross, Ms Healey, and the current one who has carried on this principled fight, because it is the RIGHT THING to do.
On a cynical note -
The current UN adooption of the Holocause Remembrance Resolution and this as an 'incentive' to encourage further Israeli disengagement unilaterally?
This is good news, and Ms. Calmy-Rey has promised to give the ratification her (and Switzerland's) full support. But all of the members get a vote at the meeting in December. It's not a done deal yet. And it appears that MDA won't, in any event, be permitted to use its own logo as an IRC member. A "neutral" red crystal thing has been proposed as an alternative symbol for members that object to using the cross or crescent. It's unclear, even if that's accepted, whether MDA would be able to insert a small red Magen David within the crystal. See more here and here.
Thanks for those links, Lynn. How do you like that "refuses to operate under" business?
As far as incentives go...if some of these moves are payback for disengagement, then that's a good thing. It might not be much, but it's something.
This would never have happened without the efforts of the American Red Cross. That it took this long says much about the political and ethnic leanings of the International Red Cross......
Sol,
I have to agree with Mike and Isirota that any progress on this front is primarily due to the untiring efforts of the ARC over many years. There's no evidence that the "disengagement" had anything to do with it. Here's another link with more background.
Oh I don't doubt it. My only point is that if D did have anything to do with it, so what? I'm well aware that the ARC has done a good job on this (hence my placement of their logo on my site after New Orleans -- if that hadn't been the case, I would have chosen another charity).