(Jewish Chronicle-UK) Hen Mazzig - In 1997, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) treated 72 hostages being held at the Japanese Ambassador's home in Peru for nearly 80 days, eventually securing their release. One year prior, aid workers provided care to 26 members of a World Wildlife Fund research mission after they were captured in Indonesia. All but two hostages survived. It has provided aid to hostages and prisoners of war in countless other conflicts over the past century and a half. When it comes to Jews and Israelis, however, the supposed "impartial" humanitarian agency has proved to be an abject failure. The ICRC collaborated with the Nazis by covering up their crimes against humanity during the Holocaust, and in 1997 its then director of archives George Willemin acknowledged the organization's "moral failure." Yet here we are, 27 years later, and the ICRC is failing Israel and the international Jewish community once again. It's been over eight months since Hamas's capture of over 200 innocent civilians. And the international aid group has yet to fulfill its most basic tenet, to check on and provide care for the hostages held by Hamas. I witnessed this double standard play out during my military service with the IDF. As a humanitarian officer stationed in the West Bank and Gaza, I helped coordinate visits by ICRC workers with members of Hamas and their families to ensure they received care. The absence of a ceasefire hasn't stopped the ICRC from intervening on behalf of hostages in past active armed conflicts. Yet it has not made any serious demands of Hamas nor the UN to gain access to the Israeli hostages. An organization whose primary purpose is to care for all victims of war has suddenly become incapable of doing so when those victims are Israeli.
2024-06-20 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive