Founded in Tel Aviv in 1930, Magen David Adom (Red Star of David) was not admitted into the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement until 2006, due to its insistence on using a Jewish symbol. Felix Pope tells the story of the man who changed that:

When the Jordanian emergency relief worker Mohammed Al-Hadid first suggested that he could welcome Israel and Palestine to the Red Cross at the same time he was met with skepticism. “People thought: no way, it’s going to divide the movement,” he says now, reflecting on the 2006 conference at which he attempted the feat.

Al-Hadid, now seventy-two, was then at the apex of a successful career in humanitarian work and serving as the chairman of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The crunch meeting came a year after he had convinced Magen David Adom—Israel’s national medical emergency, disaster, ambulance, and blood service—and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society to meet for the first time.

But it was at the Red Cross’s 2006 [international] conference that Al-Hadid faced his greatest challenge: “Lots of people were against Israel becoming a member of the Red Cross,” he says, recalling an early attempt to remove him as chair of the organization’s standing committee. . . .

Today, Israeli medics are able to work alongside their Arab counterparts in large part thanks to Al-Hadid’s work. . . . MDA is responsible for all of Israel’s first-aid training, and provides and maintains its fleet of 1,716 ambulances, medi-cycles, lifeboats, and air ambulances. It co-operates with the Palestinian Red Crescent, shares expertise internationally on mass-casualty events, and collects and supplies 300,000 units of blood annually. Last year, it opened the world’s most secure national blood bank.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.