PRINTER'S NO. 3075
No. 382 Session of 2001
INTRODUCED BY L. I. COHEN, DECEMBER 12, 2001
REFERRED TO COMMITTEE ON RULES, DECEMBER 12, 2001
A RESOLUTION
1 Urging the American Red Cross to continue its strong support of
2 Israel's full membership in the International Federation of
3 Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and to continue to
4 pressure the International Red Cross until justice prevails.
5 WHEREAS, Last year, Americans donated more than $630 million
6 to the American Red Cross; and
7 WHEREAS, This massive support reflects the reputation of the
8 American Red Cross in upholding a key American ideal, providing
9 humanitarian disaster relief to anyone in need regardless of
10 religion, race or national origin; and
11 WHEREAS, For the past 52 years, Israel's Red Cross
12 counterpart, Magen David Adom, has been relegated to nonvoting
13 observer status in the international federation; and
14 WHEREAS, Magen David Adom is the only disaster relief
15 organization of a sovereign nation to be discriminated against
16 in this way; and
17 WHEREAS, The international federation says it excludes Israel
18 because Magen David Adom's symbol is a red six-pointed Star of
1 David instead of the red cross used by Western nations or the
2 red crescent used in Muslim countries and that officially
3 recognizing a third symbol, according to international
4 federation bureaucrats in Geneva, would reduce recognition of
5 the red cross and the red crescent as neutral, noncombatant
6 insignia; and
7 WHEREAS, The international federation adopted its cross-or-
8 crescent-only rule in 1949, and that rule has existed for a half
9 century for one reason: pressure from the international
10 federation's Arab members to exclude Israel as part of their
11 ongoing political warfare against a Jewish state in their midst;
12 and
13 WHEREAS, With American values of openness, tolerance and
14 multicultural inclusion under attack by extremists around the
15 world, this is no time to acquiesce to Israel's continued
16 exclusion from the international family of disaster relief
17 organizations; and
18 WHEREAS, Dr. Bernadine Healy, when she resigned as president
19 of the American Red Cross, said: "We are a country that doesn't
20 exclude. You don't belong to a country club that excludes blacks
21 or Jews"; and
22 WHEREAS, Israel's Magen David Adom must not be forced to wait
23 another 52 years before justice is done and it is fully accepted
24 by the international federation; therefore be it
25 RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the
26 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania urge the American Red Cross to
27 continue to support the inclusion of Magen David Adom as a full
28 member in the councils of the International Federation of Red
29 Cross and Red Crescent Societies and to continue to pressure the
30 International Red Cross until justice prevails.
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