Random Thoughts on Everything

Red Crossed ... again.

Dear Red Cross,

This week I am a blubbing mess, broken by the cruel and brutal murder of the Bibas family. And yet I write to you with no expectation of sympathy.

Allow me first to remind you that Yarden, Shiri, Ariel and Kfir were stolen at gunpoint, in pyjamas, from their kibbutz home in Israel on 7th October 2023. You might recall taking part in a recent Hamas circus ceremony when a much slimmed down Yarden Bibas was returned without his family, but carrying a consolation goody bag. Did you slide in a flyer requesting his Red Cross donation to your Gaza crisis appeal? Must have been a temptation I’m sure.

I wonder how you felt less than a month ago when you Uber-ed Yarden back into Israel, knowing how many hundreds of convicted, murderous terrorists, were being freed in exchange for the three innocent Israeli civilians? Yarden Bibas, Ofer Calderon and Keith Segal … in case you’ve forgotten their names. Did you wonder where Yarden’s young children were, or did you already appreciate the consequences of your absolute failure to protect them? Did you feel empathy? Did guilt sit heavy upon your shoulders? Did you understand that you were merely a taxi service and not the angel of mercy? Just transport for a man who had everything he loved and held dear taken from him by the monstrous terror groups whom you chose, not only to fraternise with, but to placate.

Behind the handshakes, smiles and ridiculous certificate signings, did you question your comfortable place on stage amongst the masked monsters who stole 251 people? Did you even consider saying no to participating in the vile charade of those who deliberately took and murdered an innocent mother, her baby and toddler? I wish it were otherwise, but your abject history indicates that a meaningful regret for your role is unlikely.

Artificial Intelligence took only seconds to recognise that; “The Red Cross has a long history of serious failures, especially when it comes to protecting Jewish lives.” I’ll name a few here in case they have slipped your mind. During WW2 your Red Cross representatives knew about Nazi concentration camps, and did nothing. You gave aid to prisoners of war but refused to help Jews. You embraced the Nazified German Red Cross but did not recognise the Jewish organisations helping victims of the holocaust. You, the ‘neutral’ Red Cross, helped senior Nazis escape to South America, issuing Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele (amongst others) with travel documents.

After October 7th you failed to demand access to the hostages, despite international law. You pandered to Hamas terrorists rather than get vital medicines or any form of humane treatment to those hostages, despite knowing many were injured, or suffering severe illness. As a result they are now dead. Some were elderly holocaust survivors, once again let down on your watch.

I’ll quote AI; The Red Cross “claims neutrality but its repeated inaction in the face of crimes against Jews and Israelis suggests a troubling pattern.” That pattern included six decades of exclusion for Israel’s ambulance service because it operated under a Jewish star. An oddly different criteria to that applied by your ‘neutral’ organisation to the Muslim Red Crescent. Just silly old me asking, but why did none amongst you scrawl a giant, moral and ethical question mark across this reasoning? Perhaps you did but the papers got shoved in a drawer, lost until 2007, when both sides agreed to substitute a red crystal for the offensive Star of David. I expect you were finally worn down by Israel’s dogged persistence. Those damn Jews … they never give up.

And whilst I’m asking … how come you proudly boast online about providing psychosocial support to over 131,000 Gazans, and over 100,000 emergency medical services … and yet none at all were offered to any Israeli hostage?

How do you excuse your 1,500 staff and volunteers for not giving a shit about the innocent people held starved, tortured, beaten and dying in underground dungeons beneath their feet? There will be no round of applause from me as you cross your fingers behind your back and whisper into the wind that, “those taken hostage must be released unconditionally.” I ask you why 1.6 million relief items were given to Gazans but none to the Israelis chained in the tunnels below.

I expect, as in the past, you have a multitude of pious excuses ready to camouflage your behaviour. But since the despicable scenes at the return of the first four coffins, I’m sad to see you’ve learnt nothing since WW2. You remain wilfully blind with no visible conscience, and apparently are in thrall to Hamas, your puppet-masters, the new Nazis of this morally bankrupt century.

This it seems is who the Red Cross really are, and believing there’s little hope that you will ever change your ways, I suggest you take your barbed and convenient impartiality and shove it somewhere dark and painful.

Yours sincerely S. I. Royston

P.S. To save yourselves future bother, I can provide the phone number for Boris of Gett Taxi. A proud Russian Israeli. I’m sure he would be honoured to collect the remaining hostages and happily toss those offensive Hamas goody bags in the dirt, crushed by his wheels as he crosses the border to home.