WASHINGTON — A majority in the U.S. Senate agree that the Israeli Magen David Adom Society’s exclusion from the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is unjust, two members asserted at a press conference last week.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Peter Fitzgerald are leading an effort to change the situation.
At a Capitol Hill press conference, the Democratic senator from New York and the Illinois Republican unveiled letters to Secretary of State Colin Powell and to the presidents of the International Committee of the Red Cross, International Federation of Red Cross, and Red Crescent Societies urging immediate and full membership for MDA in the international movement.
Powell was asked to make the issue “a high priority” in dealing with the international aid groups and with “countries that have opposed MDA’s full admission into the Movement.”
MDA has been excluded because it uses a Star of David as its emblem, and not the required cross or crescent.
Fifty-three senators, including majority leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and minority leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), signed the letters.
At the Aug. 1 press conference, attended by representatives of more than a dozen national and local Jewish organizations, Fitzgerald noted the “discriminatory” treatment MDA has received from the Red Cross movement.
The 1949 Geneva Conventions stated that the red cross must be used as the emblem for all new national societies. But the treaty also recognized those national societies already using certain alternative emblems (the red crescent and the red lion and sun) and allowed them to continue using them. At the time, though, Israel’s request to be admitted using the red shield of David, which MDA had been using since 1930, was rejected.
Since 1949, the Red Cross has waived its rules to admit 25 additional Red Crescent societies, but has not waived its rules to allow Israel to become a full member of the movement.
Clinton said that it is “long past time” that the international Red Cross movement cease treating MDA as a “second-class citizen.”
She vowed that she and Fitzgerald would not allow the issue to fade from the spotlight. “We will be back month after month and year after year until the right thing is done,” Clinton said.
Mortimer Zuckerman, chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, called the Red Cross exclusion of MDA “straight anti-Israel behavior” and a disguise for anti-Semitism.
“The arguments they have been making…are bulls—,” Zuckerman said.
The American Red Cross also strongly supports MDA inclusion. Jerry Jones, the organization’s vice president of international services, said the inclusion of MDA “is a matter of principle that reflects quintessential American values.”
Fitzgerald said the campaign for MDA’s inclusion would not necessarily be limited to letters. Other options, he said, might include a reduction in the funding the international organization receives from the United States.
From 1994 through 2000, the U.S. government sent the international Red Cross movement a total of $842 million. The vast majority of those funds went directly to humanitarian aid, but a small portion goes toward supporting the administrative costs of international Red Cross offices.
American Red Cross spokeswomen Chris Thomas said the organization has already withheld its contribution to the administrative offices of the international Red Cross federation the past two years — a total of $10 million — to protest MDA’s exclusion. At the same time, he said, the American Red Cross has increased its payments toward direct humanitarian aid.
The State Department opposes any U.S. cut in funding to the international Red Cross movement because such action could “have the potential to affect its ability to respond” to crises, according to State Department spokeswomen Brenda Greenberg.
Greenberg said the U.S. government remains “strongly committed” to the inclusion of MDA and believes that “the International Committee for the Red Cross is not an obstacle” in that regard.
She also noted that “substantial progress was made last year” on the issue, referring to negotiations that would have created a neutral emblem — in the shape of a chevron — in which countries could then incorporate a cross, crescent, star or other symbol. Then-Secretary of State Madeline Albright and the Clinton administration favored this complicated process, which would have required three international meetings before the agreement could be ratified and had no guarantee of success. But the initial meeting was postponed last October because of violence in the Middle East and has not been rescheduled.
The American Red Cross supports the position that the MDA and its emblem should be recognized on the same basis as the cross and crescent.
According to the letters from the senators, “MDA should not be required to give up or diminish its use of its emblem as a condition for immediate and full membership in the Movement. The Red Shield of David should be accorded the same recognition under international law as the Red Cross and the Red Crescent.”