Frederic Eger
LinkedIn, Feb. 14, 2024
“… even without an express condemnation of Israel, a post that is clearly designed to evoke sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza, by showing photos of a distressed child, or emotional language, and which does not mention the responsibility of Hamas, will often evoke antipathy toward Israel.”
Out of 187 tweets published by the main Red Cross accounts on Twitter (now known as X), including those by ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric Egger and director-general Robert Mardini, 77% were focused on criticizing Israel, expressly or by implication. Only 7% of the tweets criticized Hamas.
For example, on October 17th, the ICRC promoted the false Hamas story that Israel attacked and “destroyed” Al-Ahli hospital, saying it was “shocked and horrified” that “hundreds were killed,” including “patients “killed in a hospital bed,” and doctors “losing their lies trying to save others. None of these was true. The hospital parking lot was attacked by an Islamic Jihad rocket. ICRC never corrected its misinformation.
“The Red Cross claims to be neutral, but its public statements are anything but,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch and an international human rights lawyer.
“While it’s difficult to judge what the Red Cross does behind closed doors in its diplomatic work, we can certainly assess their public statements, and what we found is alarming. The world’s leading humanitarian organization is failing to uphold its core principles of neutrality. It’s failing to call out a terrorist group that systematically violates the Geneva Conventions and the principles of international humanitarian law,” said Neuer. … [To read the full article, click here]
