IP: Red Cross Double Cross

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> X-Apparently-From: <millheif () yahoo com>
> From: "frank millheim jr" <millheif () yahoo com>
> To: <dave () farber net>
>
>
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A9031-2001Oct29?language=printer>http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A9031-2001Oct29?language=printer
>
>
> ----------
> Red Cross Double Cross
>
> By Lawrence S. Eagleburger
>
> Tuesday, October 30, 2001; Page A21
>
> Dr. Bernadine Healy's resignation as president of the American Red Cross 
> is a tragedy. This remarkable woman has, in less than two years, forced 
> major reforms on a reluctant governing body and shown superb crisis 
> management skills in the aftermath of the terrible events of Sept. 11.
>
> But this is not all she should be remembered for. Healy, shortly after she 
> took office, discovered that the American Red Cross had acquiesced for 
> decades in the policy of the International Federation of the Red Cross and 
> Red Crescent to oppose accepting Magen David Adom as a legitimate emblem 
> of the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross. She rightly saw this as, at 
> best, turning a blind eye on a moral wrong; in an act of great moral 
> courage, she set about to put things right. She spoke against the 
> federation's anti-Israeli stance in Geneva, the home of the federation, 
> and stirred up a hornet's nest of denials of wrongdoing, complaints 
> against her lack of diplomatic finesse and charges that her methods just 
> "weren't done" in Geneva.
>
> When it became obvious that the federation (and most of its member states) 
> were not going to change their ways, Healy settled in for a long and 
> sometimes nasty battle. She made it clear to the federation and her own 
> board that the American Red Cross was no longer prepared to accept in 
> silence a policy that was inimical to our deepest held values and that put 
> the lie to the federation's claims of universality.
>
> As a part of Healy's preparations for a strategic approach to the fight to 
> force the federation to forswear its discriminatory policy against Israel, 
> she asked me to accept appointment as ambassador at large (a high sounding 
> but unpaid and powerless position), and to advise her when she felt the 
> need for advice. I accepted, went several times to Geneva on her behalf 
> and saw at firsthand the conspiracy of silence and obfuscation deployed 
> against the American Red Cross's efforts to at least get the issue 
> thoroughly aired before members of the federation and the public.
>
> I suggested to Healy that withholding dues to the federation was a useful 
> way to force the federation to take the American Red Cross's demands 
> seriously; Healy agreed, and the funds were withheld, with the approval of 
> the board. At the time, I warned Healy that support for this aggressive 
> policy would begin to diminish over time as the weak of heart, and those 
> who really did not care much if the discrimination against Israel 
> continued, listened to the blandishments of the federation's bureaucrats 
> and politicians, who would argue that a hard-line American approach would 
> never accomplish its objective, while compromise and goodwill could 
> eventually accomplish much.'

<snip>

The writer is a former secretary of state.



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