In the second movie of the hugely popular Pirates of the Caribbean film series, Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow is told that a moment will come when he has the chance to do the right thing. Sparrow’s response? “I love those moments. I like to wave at them as they pass by.”
That is apparently how the Red Cross feels about the opportunity to do anything to help innocent Jewish children and old women, let alone the other hostages.
Under the hostage deal between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization, the Red Cross was supposed to be able to visit the Israeli hostages who have been held in Gaza for nearly two months. The original date for the end of the ceasefire has passed and it has been extended, and still not a single visit to a hostage has occurred.
The Red Cross did not even try. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his government that the agreement allowed the Red Cross to visit the hostages, the organization did not spring into action. It did not demand that Hamas fulfill its obligations under the deal, let alone under international law. It did not put any pressure on Hamas. Instead it equivocated, questioning whether the deal really allowed for the organization to do the job it was supposedly created to do.
When the family of Elma Avraham, one of the hostages released this week, attempted to give the Red Cross the medication she needed so she could receive proper medical care while in Hamas captivity, the Red Cross refused them outright.
Elma, who is 84, had to be hospitalized in serious condition when she was returned. According to her daughter Tal Amano, she had a body temperature of just 82 degrees Fahrenheit and a heartrate of just 40 beats per minute.
The Avraham family’s pleas were repeatedly rejected, with one Red Cross official asking: “Again you came with her package of medications?”
Had the Red Cross any intention of pressuring Hamas or of visiting the hostages, it would have accepted the medications. Even if there was no guarantee that it would be allowed to visit Elma and care for her, it would have taken the medications in the hope that it would be able to give them to her. But the Red Cross had no such intentions. It was content to let Elma and all of the other hostages suffer and possibly die.
Paul Newman’s character in the movie Exodus said that to the world, “Jewish flesh is cheap, it is cheaper than beef. It is cheaper even than herring.” The Red Cross’ inaction in the face of the Jewish hostages proves this to be true more than 60 years later. Jewish flesh and blood is too cheap to be worth putting in any effort whatsoever to protect and save Jewish babies.
The Red Cross has the gall to express pride in its role in driving the hostages who have been released so far to the Israeli border after they were brought to Egypt by Hamas. As many in Israel and the Jewish world have pointed out, that is the equivalent of serving as an Uber and a role that could have been fulfilled by any organization. The job of the Red Cross was to ensure that the hostages’ rights and medical conditions were being protected, a job the Red Cross still adamantly refuses to even attempt to do. When it comes to Jews, the Red Cross can only be bothered to put in as much effort as is required to be a taxi service for an hour when Israeli hospitals do the actual work of providing the needed medical attention the Red Cross refused to provide.
The Red Cross has always disgraced itself when it comes to Jewish and Israeli prisoners. Its own leadership admitted to not doing enough for the Jews taken prisoner and murdered in the millions during the Holocaust. It ignored the plight of Gilad Shalit for five years and has ignored the plight of Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed to this day. When faced with one of the worst hostages crises in world history, when faced with a chance to finally do the right thing, the Red Cross’ leadership made the conscious decision to wave at the crisis and the opportunity as they passed by, to spit in the face of 240 hostages and their families. Because they are Jews and Israelis, and not worth putting in any effort to help or save in the eyes of the Red Cross.
Jack Sparrow ultimately does do the right thing at the end of his movie, returning to his ship to save his crew and his friends rather than watch them die. Unfortunately, we do not live in a movie, and the Red Cross has decided to sit back and watch as innocent Jews, from a ten-month-old baby to elderly Holocaust survivors, suffer and possibly die.
After standing by and doing nothing for weeks, even after a deal was reached to allow it to visit the hostages, the Red Cross is redder than ever with the blood of Jews on its hands. And we will never forget or forgive.
Gary Willig is on the Arutz Sheva news staff.