After almost six decades of rejection, Israel saw the road cleared yesterday for its emergency and disaster relief organization to join the International Red Cross. The price of admission was relinquishing its symbol, the Red Star of David.

Instead, the Red Cross approved a new "neutral" symbol -- a Red Crystal, which Israel must adopt to become a member, possibly next spring. The Star of David may still be used at home, and on foreign missions it can be put inside the Crystal, provided the host country agrees.

Israeli diplomats are celebrating the Crystal as a great victory. If that's a victory, we'd hate to see a defeat. Even this compromise, which was opposed by most Muslim countries, came only after the American Red Cross withheld its contributions to protest Israel's exclusion from the international body.

Some Crystal backers argue that the Red Cross carries no religious symbolism. Under this rewriting of history, Swiss Red Cross founder Henry Dunant adopted the inverse design of his homeland's flag without any religious motivation. But the Swiss flag dates back to the Holy Roman Empire and of course has strong Christian connotations. This cannot have escaped the deeply religious Dunant who, by the way, was also a fervent Zionist.

Irrespective of Dunant's intentions, the Red Cross came to be seen as a Christian symbol. That's why Muslim countries refused to adopt it, and instead chose the Red Crescent, the only other recognized symbol. It's a disgrace that the Star of David, which symbolizes the faith that spawned both Christianity and Islam, is excluded.

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