Red Cross hosts Hamas deportees
David Frankfurter
Red
Cross hosts Hamas deportees
http://dfrankfurter.livejournal.com/121951.html
The Red Cross has always been grudging in its
attitude to Israel. Its decades of reluctance to accept Israel's Magen David
Adom into its fold until the US Red Cross withdrew funding was a prime example.
For many years, the Red Cross had pretended that its hands were tied, as
Israel's Star of David emblem did not conform to its standards (while the Palestinian
Red Crescent was fine).
And today, the Red Cross says it is pressuring
Hamas to allow access to captured soldier Gilad Shalit. Somehow, in a perverted
way, the Red Cross claims some sort of victory in its activities in the region:
"One of our main
achievements is that we have been able to visit nearly everyone detained in
connection to this conflict, with the exception of Gilad Shalit," Pierre
Dorbes, deputy head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Israel
and the Occupied Territories, told Haaretz on
Tuesday.
Dorbes conveniently forgets Ron Arad, or in fact
any Israeli who has been captured in the past by Arab armies or militias. Of
course the Red Cross has had access to all Israeli prisoners. Israel acts
within the norms of international law and morality even toward terrorists. And
the Red Cross claims the credit!
Of course, the Red Cross is powerless against
rogue regimes, like Hamas - isn't it? Academic Israel hater Noam Chomsky tells
us in "Turning the Tide: US intervention in Central America and the
struggle for peace" that the Red Cross "in
July 1982... threatened to leave El Salvador because of human rights abuses by
the armed forces...".
So in Gaza, has the Red Cross ever taken such a
strong stand - if not for Gilad Shalit, then for the citizens of southern
Israel who were subjected to barrages of rockets and missiles? For the daily
abuses of human rights in Gaza as Hamas attacks its own citizens, steals their
aid, uses them as human shields, implements kangaroo court death penalties, and
much more?
How does the Red Cross pressure Hamas?
In East Jerusalem, the answer is clear - although
the only media to have carried the story so far is the print edition of
Israel's Hebrew language Yediot Aharonot and the website of the Muslim
Brotherhood. (I leave you to ask your local media why this story is of no
general interest.)
To quote Yediot Aharonot "Hamas
does not allow Red Cross representatives to visit captive Gilad Shalit, but it
doesn't stop the international organisation from granting asylum in its East Jerusalem
offices to Hamas leaders."Israel
has issued deportation orders for subversive activity against four Hamas
leaders. One is in an Israeli jail, waiting the outcome of a high court appeal
against the order. The others are photographed being served drinks by a Red
Cross employee at a table laden with refreshments in the Red Cross East
Jerusalem offices, which has granted them asylum and advised the Israeli
authorities that they are under Red Cross protection.
Israel has warned that they are not protected
there...but if they are arrested, I can just imagine the sudden media interest
and outcry.
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