November 1, 2001

The issue of full international Red Cross membership for Israel’s Magen David Adom Society is again center stage with last week’s resignation of American Red Cross President Dr. Bernadine Healy. According to news reports, Dr. Healy’s resignation stemmed from policy disagreements with the ARC board, including her decision to cut off dues to the International Red Cross over that body’s refusal to accept the Israeli relief organization. Israel and Kazakhstan (whose emblem is comprised of both the crescent and the cross) are the only two nations denied membership in the International movement. For additional perspective on Dr. Healy’s resignation and MDA, see "Red Cross Double Cross" by former secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger, embedded below.

Dr. Healy was honored at JCPA’s Plenum 2001 for her principled stand in support of Magen David Adom. Arguing for full admission, Dr Healy said, "This situation is something we must correct lest the exclusion of Magen David Adom be perceived as partial, biased, discriminatory or politically driven." In May 2000, at the American Red Cross national convention, more than 1100 delegates unanimously supported a resolution reaffirming their support for the ARC Board of Governors policy on Magen David Adom. Following this show of support, the American Red Cross decided to place in escrow its annual dues payment for the overhead expenses of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. For additional background information on Israel and the Red Cross, see "Israel and the Red Cross" in a search of the American Jewish Committee’s website at www.ajc.org

JCPA member agencies are urged to:

• Send letters reaffirming support for Magen David Adom’s admission to full International Red Cross membership, and the continued withholding of ICRC dues to David McLaughlin, ARC Board Chairman, at American Red Cross headquarters, 430 17th Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20006. Copies of correspondence should also be sent to Senators Hillary Clinton (NY) and Peter Fitzgerald (IL), who have taken a lead role in championing the cause of MDA. Letters to Senator Clinton should be sent to Russell Senate Office Building, Rm 476, 1^st and C Streets NE, Washington, D.C. 20510. Correspondence to Senator Fitzgerald should be sent to Dirksen Senate Office Building, Rm. 555, 1^st and C Streets NE, Washington, D.C. 20510. Please see the press statement and sample letters embedded at the end of this memo.

• Dr. Healy should also be thanked for her dedication and perseverance on this issue of critical importance to Israel and the Jewish community. Correspondence should be sent to Dr. Healy at the address cited above.

• In addition, letters or postcard should be sent to Mr. Jakob Kellenberger, President, International Committee of the Red Cross using this model language:

We urge you to encourage acceptance of the Israeli Magen David Adom Society in the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Although Israel meets all other conditions of membership in these bodies, Israel’s own humanitarian society has been excluded because it has used the ancient Jewish symbol, the Star of David, since 1931.

Full acceptance of the Magen David Adom Society will send a clear signal that the ICRC reaffirms its commitment to the principles of impartiality and universality. The time to act is now.

Dr. Jakob Kellenberger, President

International Committee of the Red Cross
Public Information Centre
19 avenue de la Paix
CH 1202 Genève

As always, please copy the JCPA on all correspondence.

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Red Cross Double Cross

By Lawrence S. Eagleburger

Tuesday, October 30, 2001; Page A21

Dr. Bernadine Healy's resignation as president of the American Red Cross is a tragedy. This remarkable woman has, in less than two years, forced major reforms on a reluctant governing body and shown superb crisis management skills in the aftermath of the terrible events of Sept. 11.

But this is not all she should be remembered for. Healy, shortly after she took office, discovered that the American Red Cross had acquiesced for decades in the policy of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent to oppose accepting Magen David Adom as a legitimate emblem of the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross. She rightly saw this as, at best, turning a blind eye on a moral wrong; in an act of great moral courage, she set about to put things right. She spoke against the federation's anti-Israeli stance in Geneva, the home of the federation, and stirred up a hornet's nest of denials of wrongdoing, complaints against her lack of diplomatic finesse and charges that her methods just "weren't done" in Geneva.

When it became obvious that the federation (and most of its member states) were not going to change their ways, Healy settled in for a long and sometimes nasty battle. She made it clear to the federation and her own board that the American Red Cross was no longer prepared to accept in silence a policy that was inimical to our deepest held values and that put the lie to the federation's claims of universality.

As a part of Healy's preparations for a strategic approach to the fight to force the federation to forswear its discriminatory policy against Israel, she asked me to accept appointment as ambassador at large (a high sounding but unpaid and powerless position), and to advise her when she felt the need for advice. I accepted, went several times to Geneva on her behalf and saw at firsthand the conspiracy of silence and obfuscation deployed against the American Red Cross's efforts to at least get the issue thoroughly aired before members of the federation and the public.

I suggested to Healy that withholding dues to the federation was a useful way to force the federation to take the American Red Cross's demands seriously; Healy agreed, and the funds were withheld, with the approval of the board. At the time, I warned Healy that support for this aggressive policy would begin to diminish over time as the weak of heart, and those who really did not care much if the discrimination against Israel continued, listened to the blandishments of the federation's bureaucrats and politicians, who would argue that a hard-line American approach would never accomplish its objective, while compromise and goodwill could eventually accomplish much.

I recently sent Healy a memorandum that laid out the issues as I saw them:

"The refusal of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent to reverse its long-standing opposition to accepting Magen David Adom as a legitimate emblem of the Israeli Red Cross equivalent is, and has been from the inception of this exclusionary policy, immoral. As such it has no place in an organization which purports to be philanthropic in its purposes, and caring for the least of us in its practices.

"That the exclusion of Magen David Adom has continued for decades without strong objection from the American Red Cross has raised legitimate questions about our commitment to the fundamentals of the Red Cross movement, and to the principles that guide American foreign policy. It is for those reasons that I recommended that the American Red Cross withhold its dues from the Federation. We have no business supporting an immoral policy that looks and smells too much like the infamous policies of the 1930's and 1940's. . . .

"As certain as night follows day we can expect that bureaucrats from the Federation will do all they can to persuade leading Americans to force President Healy . . . to return to discredited policies.

"They must not succeed! At a time when the United States and the civilized world are at war with extremism, it would be an inexcusable mistake for a leading humanitarian organization like the American Red Cross to succumb to political pressure and drop its principled opposition to policies of exclusion and intolerance."

But "they" have succeeded. Last week Healy was forced out of office by a behind-closed-doors vote of the American Red Cross's Board of Governors -- not because of anything relating to the Sept. 11 tragedy but because she dared to try to right a wrong -- the wrong of denying a sovereign nation equality because of its ethnicity. The weak and easily persuaded had indeed succumbed to the blandishments of the sophisticated federation apologists who are so adept at making a wolf look like a sheep. Before long the American Red Cross, under its new and surely more "moderate" leadership, will return to paying its dues and "cooling it" on the issue of granting Magen David Adom the equality justice demands. Those of us who, like Healy, believe that the American Red Cross must represent the best of our nation have lost not just a battle but a war.

The writer is a former secretary of state.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company

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Fitzgerald, Clinton Urge Equal Status For
Israel's Magen David Adom

August 1, 2001

53 senators join in letters to Powell, Red Cross leaders;
Fitzgerald, Clinton release letters at Washington news conference

Washington, DC - Continuing their drive to end international exclusion of Israel's Magen David Adom (MDA) Society, U.S. Senators Peter G. Fitzgerald (R-IL) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) announced today they are leading a group of 53 senators in urging Secretary of State Colin Powell and Red Cross leaders to push for full and immediate MDA membership in the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement <http://www.redcross.alertnet.org/en/>.

Fitzgerald, Clinton, and their colleagues sent letters today to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Jakob Kellenberger, President of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent (ICRC), and Dr. Astrid Heiberg, President of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, urging swift recognition and full membership for MDA, which has been excluded from the Movement for more than 50 years. The senators said MDA should be admitted to the Federation and the Movement as a whole as a full and equal member without having to give up or diminish use of its emblem, the Red Shield of David.

"Magen David Adom saves lives and provides emergency assistance to people in many countries, regardless of ethnicity or religion, yet it is the only national emergency relief society to be excluded from the world's largest humanitarian network," said Fitzgerald, who authored the letters on the heels of a Senate resolution he proposed and passed last year calling for immediate recognition of MDA. "These letters, signed by 53 U.S. Senators, send a clear signal to the international Red Cross leadership and the world that MDA's exclusion from the Red Cross Movement is unacceptable. The ICRC, the Federation, and the entire Movement stand to gain by admitting MDA as a full and equal partner."

"For more than 70 years, Magen David Adom has given the gift of life at home and abroad. I have seen MDA in action in the Balkans, where its talented employees and volunteers worked side-by-side with Christian and Muslim groups to provide aid to Kosovar refugees. After the earthquakes in Turkey in 1999, its paramedics were on the frontlines to help save the lives of desperate people trapped under the rubble," said Senator Clinton. "MDA truly embodies the principles upon which the Red Cross Movement was founded in 1864-Humanity, Impartiality, Neutrality, Unity, and Universality. It is high time for MDA to be admitted as a full voting member to the Movement and for its emblem, the Red Shield of David, to be recognized internationally."

Dr. Bernadine Healy, President and CEO of the American Red Cross <http://www.redcross.org/>, said, "The American Red Cross has long supported ful membership of MDA in the international movement. This is a matter of principle and reflects American values as well as the fundamental principles of the Red Cross Red Crescent movement: universality, neutrality, impartiality."

Fitzgerald and Clinton met last week with Dr. Healy, President of the American Red Cross, to discuss Magen David Adom's status in the Red Cross Movement.

MDA has been excluded from the International Red Cross Movement for over five decades, purportedly because its 70-year-old emblem, the Red Shield of David, is unacceptable under the organization's current guidelines. International Red Cross rules state that post-1949 entrants to the Movement must use the Red Cross emblem. While MDA has been denied full membership in the network under that rule, 25 other national societies using non-Red Cross emblems have, nonetheless, been admitted since that time.

Despite its exclusion from the Red Cross Movement, MDA plays an active role in disaster assistance worldwide. MDA recently helped rescue trapped civilians following this year's earthquake in India and the 1999 earthquakes in Turkey and Greece. Israeli medical teams were among the first to assist victims of severe flooding in Mozambique in 2000. MDA also provided invaluable humanitarian services in Kosovo, Indonesia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea in recent years.

Though MDA has been unofficially recognized as the emblem of the medical and first aid services society in Israel since 1930, the organization does not have voting rights in the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement or equal status with other emergency relief societies under the organization's rules.

Representatives from the following organizations also attended the news conference to endorse Fitzgerald's and Clinton's efforts: Hadassah, Orthodox Union, Anti-Defamation League (ADL), ARMDI (American Friends of Magen David Adom), Chicago Chapter-Magen David Adom, NJDC, RJC, Religious Action Center, JCPA-Jewish Council for Public Affairs, United Jewish Communities, Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, UJA Federation, American Jewish Committee, B'nai Brith, and the Zionist Organization of America.

Senate Letter:

 The Honorable Colin Powell

Secretary

Department of State

2201 C Street, N.W.

Washington, DC 20520

Dear Secretary Powell:

We are writing to express our deep concern regarding the status of Israel’s Magen David Adom Society within the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

Israel's Magen David Adom Society has since 1930 provided emergency relief to people in many countries in times of need, pain, and suffering, regardless of nationality or religious affiliation. In the past two years alone, MDA has provided invaluable humanitarian services in Kosovo, Indonesia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, as well as Greece, Turkey, and India in the wake of the earthquakes that devastated these countries.

The American Red Cross has recognized the superb and invaluable work done by MDA and considers the exclusion of the MDA Society from the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement "an injustice of the highest order." The American Red Cross has repeatedly urged that the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement recognize MDA as a full member, with its emblem.

The Magen David Adom Society uses the Red Shield of David as its emblem, in similar fashion to the use of the Red Cross and Red Crescent by other national societies. The Red Cross and the Red Crescent have been recognized as protective emblems under the Statutes of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

The Statutes of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement state that it "makes no discrimination as to nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or political opinions," and it "may not take sides in hostilities or engage at any time in controversies of a political, racial, religious or ideological nature." Although similar national organizations of Iraq, North Korea, and Afghanistan are recognized as full members of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, MDA has been denied membership since 1949.

As you know, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement has not acted upon previous requests from the United States Congress to recognize the Magen David Adom Society. As recently as October 18, 2000, the U.S. Senate approved Senate Resolution 343—cosponsored by 25 Senators—expressing the sense of the Senate that the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement should recognize and admit to full membership Israel's Magen David Adom Society with its emblem, the Red Shield of David. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a similar resolution on May 3, 2000.

The United States has been a strong supporter of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement throughout its long history, and appreciates the Movement’s important humanitarian work. In the six fiscal years 1994 through 1999, the United States government provided the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies with $713 million.

We appreciated your testimony earlier this year before the Senate Budget Committee regarding MDA, and ask you to make MDA’s recognition and membership in the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement—with its emblem, the Red Shield of David—a high priority of the United States in its dealings with the ICRC, the Inernational Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and with countries that have opposed MDA’s full admission into the Movement.

Negotiations to add a possible third Protocol to the Geneva Conventions to create a new neutral emblem and allow for MDA recognition with its emblem stalled last year with no resumption in sight. Sole dependence on these negotiations to achieve MDA recognition clearly has not succeeded. We therefore urge you to aggressively pursue all other possible avenues for MDA’s immediate admission into the Movement. We underscore that 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.

The United States must send a clear signal to the leadership of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, to other national societies, and to all member countries of the Movement that it is unacceptable to the American people that Israel’s Magen David Adom—alone among national societies—be denied admission to the largest humanitarian network in the world.

Sincerely yours,