Meet The Red Lozenge
November 03, 2005 | Aussie Dave | Comments 3
After decades of being excluded, it seems that Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) is on the cusp of being recognized by the International Committee of the Red Cross. There’s just one slight catch.
Israel said on Monday that it expects its Magen David Adom (Star of David) ambulance service to be recognised by the International Committee of the Red Cross by year’s end, ending a decades-old dispute over the exclusion.Switzerland will convene an international conference by December to consider adopting a third, non-denominational emblem for the Geneva-based Red Cross movement, which currently recognises only the cross and the crescent as symbols.
The non-denominational emblem likely to be used for Israel’s Magen David Adom is this lozenge/crystal thing-a-me-bob:
While there will be those like me who are perturbed that MDA can’t use the Star of David, it could be worse. For instance, it is a lot better than what the neo palestinians proposed as the symbol for MDA ambulances:
Filed Under: General
About the Author: An Australian immigrant to Israel, Aussie Dave has been blogging since early 2003.
If I understand this correctly, we will have to rename MDA to IRD, for Israel Red Diamond.
Walk away, Israel. Walk away and don’t turn back.
It’s a bit worse than you’ve specified you see, it’s not that the ICRC refuses to recognize ANY symbols other than cross and crescent. They DO recognize the iranian Lion and Sun. http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/i/icrc-lio.gif
It’s just Jewish symbols they object.
The former ICRC chariman, Cornelio Sommaruga has responded to an offer to make the star of David an official symbol with the following: “”If we’re going to have the Shield of David, why would we not have to accept the swastika?”
As a sidenote, that same Sommaruga was later sent here by the UN to investigate the Jenin “massacre”. Yey, UN!
The Lion and Sun was recognized back in 1929. At that time most countries were colonies, so the cross was widely used the world over. They made it explicit in the convention then that they wouldn’t add any other symbol to the 3 versions used then. Also the comment about the swastika is in regards to some Hindu countries and not the Nazis. They actually tried to adopt that in the 70s. What is with you folks and the everyone-is-out-to-get-us mentality? -Iranian fellow