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Neutral crystal symbol may join traditional Red Cross emblems
The Red Cross and its Islamic cousin, the Red Crescent, could soon be joined by a Red Crystal. The move is an attempt to create a neutral emblem in an age of growing religious strife, in which aid workers have been attacked and the Red Cross headquarters in Baghdad bombed.
The symbol also seeks to resolve disputes that have kept some humanitarian organisations, mainly Israel’s Magen David Adom, which uses the red Shield of David, outside the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. Switzerland plans to convene a conference by the end of the year at which the 192 countries party to the Geneva conventions will be asked to approve the red crystal, a red square tilted on its edge against a white background.
National symbols such as the Shield of David could be incorporated into the red crystal.
Moreover, the International Committee of the Red Cross would use the red crystal instead of the red cross in areas of religious conflict where its emblem might be taken as a Christian symbol. The red cross was adopted to identify medics and ambulances in war zones in 1863. The emblem was the reverse of the Swiss flag, a long-standing symbol of neutrality.
But it was soon apparent that the red cross would not be universally accepted. The Ottoman empire unilaterally declared that it would use the red crescent during the Russo-Turkish war of 1876. Soon Persia secured the use of the red lion and sun, while Siam made an attempt to use a red flame.
Diplomats negotiating international humanitarian law later became alarmed that the proliferation of symbols would create confusion and increase the risk of harm to medical workers.
For decades they drew the line at the red cross, the red crescent and the red lion and sun, but the latter was abandoned by Iran after the Islamic revolution in 1979.
Israel, however, insisted on using the Shield of David and has been kept out of the international movement for the past 56 years.
The last attempt to adopt a neutral symbol fell apart in 2000 after the outbreak of the Palestinian armed uprising. Since then, in protest at the exclusion of Israel, the American Red Cross has held back its payments to the International Red Cross Movement.
Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip may now have changed the political mood.
The proposed symbol
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