Yes, it’s all true, but what about the MDA and the icrc emblem?

Ah, yes Abb1, that’s the formula. It’s as simple as your earlier formula (from an old thread here that I just googled):

the state of Israel is the worst offender on earth. Isn’t it a good reason for ceaseless vituperation?

To which I can only borrow another commenter’s reply (and these will be my final words on the matter):

You’ve done the discourse on Israel and anti-semitism a great service. This thread will soon disappear as the tide of new posts rises on Crooked Timber. But your comments above will never wash away; they will remain a milestone of stupidity, the very definition of a special sort of bigotry. Whenever people want an example, they will surely be pointed to you.

ICRC’s red cross is not a religious symbol, it’s an ICRC’s emblem, that’s all.

I have no problem with magen david, but see – magen david is not an ICRC’s emblem. Hello? Anybody home? Is this still too complicated?

My thesis is: someone who wants to join ICRC but won’t accept ICRC’s emblem is a nutcase.

So, the easiest solution is: kick the nutcases out of the MDA, hire (or elect) some sane people and try again. Being governed and managed by crazies is not good for you anyway.

Unlike me, my colleague finds all religious symbols offensive, the cross in particular.

Speaking of “history”, the Magen David (star of David) is at once the official symbol (flag) of the state of Israel and a de facto symbol of the Jewish people (it has no official religious significance). So, to recycle your earlier formula…

Now, do you personally find this symbol offensive? Do you know someone who does? Can you imagine someone who does and isn’t a bigot?

These are, of course, rhetorical questions (to which I already know the answers).

You have a colleague who finds ICRC’s emblem offensive, really? Be careful.

No, I was born under the symbol of the cross. I am now an atheist but still have a weakness for church ritual.

Do you know someone who does?

Yes, at least one Muslim colleague. And, if I read Jagdish correctly, his wife.

Can you imagine someone who does and isn’t a crackpot?

See above. But why don’t you campaign (preferably in Arab and Muslim countries) to abolish the crescent as a symbol and the adoption of the cross instead?

Now, do you personally find ICRC’s emblem offensive? Do you know someone who does? Can you imagine someone who does and isn’t a crackpot?

Thanks.

Your biases have always been evident, Abb1, but I’m beginning to think that your inability to read (and comprehend) might just have something to do with the sheer callousness of your comments.

From Eve Garrard: If the MDA ought to be prepared to accept the cross as its symbol, presumably the Red Crescent countries ought to as well. Does anyone suggest that the ICRC should require them to do that? We can all see why that might be objectionable. Why isn’t that just as visible in the Israeli case, thus preventing this red herring from appearing in the argument in the first place?

And if you still don’t know why some symbols offend people…

From Jagdish: The cross to Hindus (a religious group into which I was born) has nothing like the ominous 2000-year-old resonance it has to Jews (an ethnic group that includes my wife).

Thanks.

There are utterly no instances of anti-Israel bias, (and, considering that this matter predates 1948, anti-Jewish bias) no matter how clearcut and transparent, that cannot be twisted so that the victims of this bias are made to seem the transgressors. Plus ça change.