GENEVA, June 20: An international conference was on Tuesday struggling to end a 56-year stalemate over Israel’s membership of the global Red Cross movement, after Muslim nations launched a politically-inspired challenge to a proposed settlement.

Members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference held up the gathering on procedural grounds for several hours, and the atmosphere was “tense,” according to a participant.

The meeting was expected to resume on Wednesday, as mediators continued the hunt for a way to avoid a divisive vote.

Earlier on Tuesday, Pakistan and Tunisia had said that the 192 signatory nations of the Geneva Conventions should formally reaffirm that the movement’s rules apply in “all Arab territories occupied since 1967, namely the Palestinian territory including East Jerusalem, the Syrian Golan and the Lebanese Shebaa Farms”.

The proposal said that they fall within the respective jurisdiction of the Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese Red Crescent societies. In effect, it marked a diplomatic protest against Israeli control of the three areas.

Pakistan and Tunisia proposed adding the wording — which was unacceptable to Israel — to a broader resolution on whether to change the statutes of the international Red Cross and Crescent movement to add a new “red crystal” emblem.

Changing the statutes would cement a deal that emerged from a conference last December, which capped painstaking negotiations to end a decades-old row and allow Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA, Red Star of David) into the international network.

The MDA was officially not recognised in the Geneva Conventions, even though Israel is a signatory, because its emblem did not conform with longstanding rules allowing only a cross or a crescent.

Failed efforts six years ago to end the dispute prompted a boycott by the American Red Cross which held back $36 million in contributions to the international movement.

The Palestinian Red Crescent was also barred because the movement’s statutes only allow relief societies from sovereign states to join. —AFP