By Joseph Wolkin, World Israel News -
In a bizarre series of tweets on Sunday, the International Committee of the Red Cross in Israel & OT (occupied territories) criticized the fictional Israeli series Fauda for containing fictional violations of humanitarian law.
The popular Netflix series focuses on an undercover Israeli army unit combating terrorists in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip.
“Like many of you, this year we’ve also watched @FaudaOfficial and noted a number of violations of #IHL,” the ICRC in Israel & OT tweeted.
The ICRC criticizes the show on a number of counts. Noting episode number and fictional violation, the ICRC tweeted, “Taking hostages is illegal in any circumstances, and specifically prohibited by #IHL.” In another tweet it said, “Building a military base in the premises of a hospital is not allowed by #IHL as it puts civilians and wounded fighters at risk.”
And in a third it tweeted, “Using an ambulance for covert activities and impersonating health care workers and misusing the emblem are serious violations of IHL.”
It’s not clear what the purpose of these tweets were or whether the ICRC criticizes other TV shows, given that it would be hard to find Fauda-type dramas that don’t contain violations of humanitarian law.
One of the creators of Fauda, Avi Issachoroff, responded to the tweets. He clearly didn’t take them very seriously, tweeting “We shall consider all this in season 4 and promise to try to come with new original violations.”
While it bills itself as ICRC in Israel & OT, its Twitter thread suggests the organization is almost exclusively focused on helping Palestinians.
The Red Cross as a whole has a dark history where Jews are concerned, most notoriously for its lack of action during the Holocaust.
On Jan. 2020, the ICRC’s website to mark the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz says, “For the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), it also marks a failure, the failure to help and protect the millions of people who were exterminated in the death camps. The ICRC has publicly expressed its regret regarding its impotence and the mistakes it made in dealing with Nazi persecution and genocide.”
However, its failure then has made it no friendlier to the Jewish State. For more than 50 years, until 2006, the ICRC refused to recognize Israel’s version of the Red Cross, the Magen David Adom, because of its Star of David, even while it recognized the Muslim countries’ Red Crescent.
The ICRC also considers Judea and Samaria occupied territories, as well as the Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip. Israel has not controlled the Gaza Strip since 2005 and it annexed the Golan Heights in 1981.
The ICRC allowed two senior Hamas terrorists to hide out in their facilities in eastern Jerusalem for 18 months before they were arrested by Israeli police in 2012. The two were involved in the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, ironic given the ICRC’s Fauda tweet about “taking hostages.”
Indeed, the three violations of humanitarian law the ICRC in Israel & OT called out on Twitter have been committed by the Palestinians many times over.
