The International Red Cross together with the Palestinian Red Crescent in Jenin planted 150 trees bearing the names of “veteran prisoners” who were convicted and jailed for murdering Israelis.
Most foreign and local media call them “militants,” reserving the word terrorists for those who kill people for political gain in a media outlet’s home country.
The Palestinian Authority now has helped the Red Cross add another word to the Orwellian Middle East dictionary: “Veteran prisoners.”
The official Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida reported last week that the Red Cross and Red Crescent “planted 150 fruit trees that carry the names of the veteran prisoners jailed in the occupation prisons.” The article was translated and published on Sunday by the Palestinian Media Watch.
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida told its readers that the two organizations “conducted a ceremony called ‘My Honor is My Freedom’ in the village of Zububa to mark the 150th anniversary of their founding. Fruit trees were planted at the entrance to the village, where the racist annexation and expansion wall that has swallowed up thousands of acres [of land] was built.”
The Red Cross has a very cozy relationship with the Palestinian Authority, where the Red Crescent has long been a member of the international organization. Israel’s Magen David rescue services were not accepted by the International Federation of Red Cross until 2005, but on a condition: Magen David has to agree not to operate in Judea and Samaria or areas in Jerusalem claimed by the Palestinian Authority.
Displaying the Jewish Star of David, the translation of the term Magen David and the symbol used on its ambulances, would suggest that the Red Cross, God forbid, acknowledges that Jews can live in Judea and Samaria and all of Jerusalem.
The Red Cross, in its devotion to protecting the rights of prisoners under the Geneva Convention, dutifully makes sure that Israel opens its jails to relatives of jailed Palestinian Authority terrorists.
It took an entirely different attitude during the five heart-wrenching years that Hamas held Gilad Shalit hostage after kidnapping him in a terrorist attack in 2006 that left two other soldiers murdered. The Red Cross went through the motions of demanding his release but did not place any pressure on the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority to work for his freedom.
Shalit’s father Gilad said during his son’s captivity, “We demand that the Red Cross’ approach be more active and decisive. I would like to believe that they would give us a sign of life from Gilad. We are conducting ongoing dialogue with the Red Cross but it has not been much help. I did not hear them condemn Hamas on its crime against Gilad. The Red Cross has been a complete failure in this affair.”
It took the Red Cross almost five years until it made a belatedly public appeal for his release. When Shalit was released, the Red Cross did not even examine him.
The Red Cross also took no action against the Red Crescent and the Palestinian Authority’s assisting terrorism in the early part of this century, during the advanced stage of the Intifada that is also called the “Second Intifada” and the “Oslo War.”
IDF occasionally foiled terrorist attacks by inspecting Red Crescent ambulances before allowing them to continue from Judea and Samaria into urban Israel. More than once, soldiers discovered explosives and weapons under the beds of supposedly pregnant women, a gross violation of international law.
This did not stop the Red Cross from honoring the “prisoners.”
If anyone questions that they really are terrorists, check out the background of such “veteran prisoners” as Karim and Maher Younes, Issa Abd Rabbo, Osama Al-Silawi, Mohammed Turkeman, Nasser Abu Surour and Mahmoud Abu Surour, Zaid Younes, Ibrahim Al-Taqtuq, Ikram Mansour, Ahmed Ka’abna, Nael and Fakhri Barghouti and Samir Kuntar, Jamal Hweil, Jamal Tirawi and Jum’a Adam.
The name “Kuntar” should ring a bell.
Born in Lebanon, he joined the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) with the stated goal of killing Jews.
At the age of 16, he helped kidnap an Israeli family from Nahariya, on the northeast Mediterranean Coast. He murdered four people, including a 4-year-old daughter, in the presence of her father, who also was killed. He was cited as a hero by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar Assad.