MDA may be able to join Red Cross, movement head says
By JANICE ARNOLD
Thursday, 09 December 2004
Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) will be able to join the Red Cross and Red Crescent
after a third, more neutral, emblem is adopted, Dr. Mohammed Al-Hadid, the new chair
of the Standing Commission of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement,
said in a recent lecture at McGill University.
The Red Crystal, as it is known, may be “used alongside” the Red Cross and Red
Crescent emblems once it is adopted under the Geneva Convention, he said.
“MDA… and other national societies which find difficulty in using the current emblems
will be able to use this additional emblem and become a member of our international
humanitarian movement,” Al-Hadid said.
The Red Crystal is a four-sided diamond shape that avoids any religious or national
connotation.
Al-Hadid, who is also president of the Jordan Red Crescent, has for the past few years
been a strong advocate of the MDA’s full inclusion in the international body.
“I am doing everything in my power to achieve universality and increased protection for
the humanitarian staff and volunteers and victims of armed conflict,” he said.
He is also a founding member of the McGill Middle East Program in Civil Society and
Peace Building, which presented his lecture. Jimmy Weinblatt, rector of Ben-Gurion
University of the Negev and another executive of the program, introduced Al-Hadid.
Al-Hadid said MDA is promoting the same international humanitarian principles as the
Red Cross and Red Crescent “in order to promote peace and eliminate the causes of
conflict, such as discrimination based on race and beliefs.”
He noted that MDA ambulances often evacuate injured Palestinians to medical treatment,
and that the Palestinian Red Crescent (PRC) also crosses into Israel.
Al-Hadid made a strong plea for greater humanitarian co-operation in the Middle East,
and criticized the media for not reporting on the collaboration that exists between Israelis
and Arabs.
“We need to know each other better, to have an open and continuous dialogue and
explore the avenues of support and comfort to others,” he said.
Israelis and Arabs should work together on such common problems as hatred and
terrorism, as well as social issues like poverty and injustice, he said.
“It should never be forgotten that peace resides ultimately not in the hands of
governments, but in the hands of the people. It is through continuous humanitarian
contacts that other relationships are built up,” he said.
The McGill program, which brings together Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian partners, is
helping to do that, he added.
As an example, he noted that last year, Israel planned to extend its security barrier in such
a way that it would bisect Al Quds University in Jerusalem. Weinblatt knew Al Quds
president Sari Nusseibeh, who also sat on the McGill program’s executive committee.
Weinblatt wrote an open letter to Israel’s defence minister, signed by the heads of all
seven universities in Israel, demanding that the barrier be re-routed, and it was.
Al-Hadid himself was instrumental in securing the release last January of Israeli
businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum, who was being held hostage by Hezbollah and was
ill.
Tannenbaum’s son is married to Weinblatt’s daughter.
“I spoke to friends in Iran, Lebanon and the Red Cross in order to secure medication for
Mr. Tannenbaum and I continuously appealed for his release on health grounds, which
was eventually successful.”
Al-Hadid has also acted as an intermediary between the PRC and Israeli authorities on a
number of occasions during the intifadah, helping to overcome misunderstandings. He
believes he would not have been able to do this without the contacts and friends he made
through the McGill program.
Al-Hadid called for the creation of mutual disaster-response plans among Israel and its
Arab neighbours, both for natural and man-made emergencies.
“If this co-operation had been in place… we would have witnessed a joint EgyptianIsraeli response to the bombings that took place in Taba, a holiday resort in Egypt where
Israeli tourists were targeted. It would have been an occasion to show that solidarity bears
fruit in adversity and brings people closer together.”