An SOS for MDA

We’d be better off without whatever benefits Red Cross association provides rather than maintaining membership under shameful conditions.

By JPOST EDITORIAL
MDA ambulances waiting at Ben Gurion airport 311 (photo credit: Courtesy MDA)
MDA ambulances waiting at Ben Gurion airport 311
(photo credit: Courtesy MDA)
In egregious efforts to preserve its hard-won yet problematic 2005 agreement with the International Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, Magen David Adom – Israel’s national emergency ambulance service – performed bizarre flip-flops this week.
Its commitment to its own red Star of David emblem appeared equivocal. Ambulances operating beyond the Green Line were asked to undergo supposedly routine maintenance checks, but emerged without their logo.
Instead, a white six-pointed star outline framing the Rod of Asclepius symbol of medicine was featured against a red circular background, surrounded by inscriptions proclaiming the vehicle as municipal. Formal affiliation with MDA was erased.
The unexpected facade of these revamped ambulances provoked protest. It looked like capitulation to Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement insistence that MDA’s time-honored (from 1930) logo – steadfastly refused Red Cross sanction for over 80 years – not be displayed outside Israel. Only within Israel is the Movement willing to overlook its use.
By removing its symbol and visible evidence of connection with beyond-Green-Line rescue services, MDA seemed to cave in to pressure. It also appeared to acquiesce to the contention that 1949’s armistice lines are Israel’s recognized boundaries and that anything beyond is Palestine.
Embarrassed by the commotion, MDA explained away the logo-switch subterfuge as a decision to remove its traditional emblem from all community-owned ambulances, although invariably these are jointly operated with MDA.
To deflect domestic criticism, MDA subsequently promised to switch logos on all local authority-owned ambulances, regardless of which side of the Green Line they’re from. Inside-Green-Line vehicles may even be face-lifted first.
But such bureaucratic acrobatics don’t change the fact that MDA bends over backward to please the Red Cross by altering the status quo. Whether this will affect some ambulances also within the Green Line is immaterial. The MDA is complying in some measure with Red Cross demands in accordance with the humiliating compromise concocted almost six years ago.
Despite its apolitical conceit, the Red Cross has consistently evinced flagrant anti-Jewish/anti-Israel prejudice.
In 1999, Cornelio Sommaruga, then-president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, exclaimed: “If we’re going to have the Shield of David, why would we not have to accept the Swastika?” In 2005, the Red Cross reluctantly consented to end its Star of David boycott with a novel ploy: pretending the star doesn’t exist and replacing it with a “neutral” red diamond- shape, euphemistically dubbed a “crystal.” Within it, the star may feature unofficially – where tolerated. This applied exclusively to the Jewish symbol, which, from Movement perspective, stayed invisible. Only thus could Magen David Adom avoid lowly observer status vis-à-vis the Red Cross.
When Israel first applied for membership in 1949, it was instructed to adopt either the Christian cross or the Muslim crescent to qualify for admission. Yesteryear’s acutely vulnerable and impoverished newborn Jewish state mustered the pluck to insist that its first-aid services won’t operate under emblems historically or currently inimical to Jews.
If ever an organization existed that didn’t merit Israeli concessions, it’s the Red Cross. It notoriously remained aloof to Jewish bloodletting throughout the Holocaust.
ICRC Archives director George Willemin delivered World War II documents to Yad Vashem in 1997 and declared: “The ICRC admits that it kept silent.... This is the heart of its moral failure.”
Our officialdom’s meek submission to the disgraceful logo-substitution and the alacrity to broker deals at any cost isn’t pragmatism. Compromise without honor isn’t necessarily prudent.
We’d be better off without whatever benefits Red Cross association provides rather than maintaining membership under shameful conditions. We had managed quite nicely outside the Red Cross. We can carry on as well without it. There’s no ignominy in not belonging to an organization that accords full membership to such benefactors of humanity as North Korea, Iran, Syria and Sudan.


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