Israel allowed to join Red Cross

The Red Cross movement today allowed the Israeli society to join its ranks, ending a 60-year wait.

The international Red Cross federation admitted Israel’s Magen David Adom society and the Palestine Red Crescent in a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.

An optional new emblem, a red crystal, was adopted so that Israel could retain its red star of David instead of having to adopt the red cross or crescent used by the 184 other societies in the global movement.

Israeli Ambassador Itzhak Levanon said the International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent had earlier “defeated completely” a Muslim amendment that would have challenged Israel’s occupation of Arab territory since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. The vote was 72 votes for the amendment and 191 against, he said.

The conference then passed by a 237-54 vote a resolution setting up the legal basis for Israelis’ admission and making an exception to the rule that societies have to be under a sovereign state so that the Palestinians could join as well.

Magen David Adom has sought membership in the Red Cross movement since the 1930s – even before Israel became a state – but has been barred from entry because it objects to using the traditional symbols of the movement to identify its medical and humanitarian workers.

The decision completed a complicated process that included the creation of the “red crystal” symbol and was approved despite Muslim objections in a hard-fought diplomatic conference last December.

The simple red cross on a white background – the reversal of colours of the Swiss flag – was adopted as the emblem of the movement when it was founded in 1863 by Swiss humanitarians trying to care for battlefield casualties who otherwise were left to suffer.

But the symbol unintentionally reminded Muslims of the Christian Crusaders, and they insisted on their own red crescent.

When Israel’s society bid for membership was turned down in 1949, it objected to using either the cross or the crescent, and the Red Cross movement refused to admit yet another emblem.

The society and its friends have been campaigning for years to find a way out of the stalemate, and the new emblem was designed primarily to meet Israel’s objections. Magen David Adom can combine it with the red star to create a new logo.

Israel’s military will be able to use the crystal by itself on a white flag to protect medics and other humanitarian workers helping war casualties.