Israel Matzav: Irony alert: Red Cross founder was a Christian Zionist

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Irony alert: Red Cross founder was a Christian Zionist

It took from 1949 to 2006 for Israel's Magen David Adom to be admitted to the International Red Cross, and then it was only admitted on condition that the red star of David be put in a crystal as is shown at the top of this post. Ironically, it turns out, that the founder of the International Red Cross, Henri Dunant, was a Christian Zionist (for those without access to the Wall Street Journal, you can also find the full article here). Would Henri Dunant be welcomed in the Red Cross today? Tomas Sandell, the founder of the European Coalition for Israel (another ECI?) doesn't believe Dunant would be welcomed.

What a paradox that Dunant's Red Cross would later develop cozy relationships with Israel's enemies. The Red Cross has hosted Hamas activists at their base in Jerusalem instead of clearly distancing itself from their murderous policies. Not until 2006 did Israel's Magen David Adom (Red Star of David) enjoy full membership, and that was only after the U.S. threatened to pull out of the world organization. Even now, Israeli rescue teams abroad would still need the host country's permission to wear the Red Star of David.

The Red Cross is thus dangerously close to those non-governmental organizations with little public accountability that wage a "soft war" against Israel. Nowhere is this battle to delegitimize the Jewish state more present than in Geneva, the city where Dunant founded the Red Cross.

At Geneva's United Nations Human Rights Council, Israel is being singled out for criticism by the world's worst human-rights violators, such as Sudan, Iran and Libya. These regimes are applauded and supported not only by dubious NGOs funded by Arab countries, but also by Western NGOs with seemingly impeccable reputations. One of these groups is the World Council of Churches, a bit further up the road from the U.N., which blames Israel alone for the conflict while playing down Palestinian terrorism. The organization founded as a reaction to the silence of the Protestant churches during the Holocaust seems to consider attacking the Jewish state one of its foremost moral obligation.

The story of Henri Dunant's Red Cross is not much different from that of another important humanitarian group—Human Rights Watch. Earlier this year Robert Bernstein criticized the organization he helped found for its biased criticism of Israel, saying HRW had lost "critical perspective" on the Arab-Israeli conflict. The organization spends a disproportional amount of its resources denouncing the Middle East's only true democracy. At the same time it neglects to highlight the human-rights violations and aggression of Israel's enemies, which would more properly correspond with its intended mission of prying open closed societies.

Perhaps the international class of humanitarians should pause for a moment and reflect on how they ever got to this Israel obsession. It's time to return to the values of people like Henri Dunant and Robert Bernstein.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Henri Dunant, Human Rights Watch, real humanitarians, Red Cross, Robert Bernstein