The red crystal...

Source: AP

This is a good editorial. Why, on earth, can the Star of David be on equal footing with the Red Cross and the Red Crescent?

On Thursday, the 192 signatories of the Geneva Conventions decided to adopt a new international symbol - the Red Crystal - alongside the Red Cross and the Red Crescent. Now it seems, for the first time, Israel's Magen David Adom (MDA) can join the 182 members of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

The vote "reflects Israel's improved international standing … This is yet another achievement for Israel's diplomacy," gushed Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. MDA itself worked hard to achieve this result, which paves the way for Israel to join international rescue missions.

The new Red Crystal is a simple, bold diamond shape - called a "crystal" at the request of South Africa, since "diamond" had connotations of slavery. MDA will continue to use its current symbol, the red Star of David, in Israel, and internationally can use either an empty crystal or one with a Star of David inside it.

MDA and Israeli diplomats have been working toward such a solution for years, though it clearly does not give the symbol of the Jewish people the same status as the cross and the crescent. Those other two symbols do not have to appear within the crystal when operating internationally; the Star of David will.

Advocates of the crystal point out that the International Committee of the Red Cross was actually looking for such a symbol, even leaving aside the "problem" of Israel's membership, since the Red Cross was having trouble operating in some Muslim countries under its own symbol. Presumably, therefore, MDA will not be the only member society operating under the crystal in some hot spots; so will the Red Cross.

Despite these pragmatic considerations, we cannot help but feel deeply offended by both this international verdict and our own nation's puzzlingly obsequious embrace of it. Why could there not have been four recognized symbols: a cross, crescent, crystal and the Star of David? Or alternatively, why were the cross and crescent not - like our star will be - forced inside the crystal when operating internationally? There are no good answers to these questions. Evidently even a humanitarian movement, and one which perhaps more than any international body purportedly prides itself on neutrality and impartiality, can baldly discriminate against the Jewish state for decades, and then adopt a "solution" that continues to discriminate against the symbol of the Jewish people.

The Jerusalem Post editorial also notes that it's only the Muslim countries that object to the star of David: Would a Christian country object to a rescue effort operating under a Red Crescent.