This is not an April Fools’ joke. On April 1st, 2024, Pierre Krähenbühl, the disgraced former chief of UNRWA, will take over as the director-general of the International Red Cross.

The core principle of the Red Cross is neutrality. Yet when he headed UNRWA, Krähenbühl demonstrated extreme bias against Israel.

On repeated occasions during his tenure, UN Watch urged Krähenbühl to end the rampant incitement to terror and antisemitism by UNRWA teachers. Yet Krähenbühl turned a blind eye. He allowed teachers of hate to incite with impunity, indoctrinating a generation of Palestinians to hate Jews.

In November 2019, Krähenbühl was forced to resign from UNRWA over allegations that he and other managers were engaged in corruption, abuse of power and ethics violations. The scandal was so damning that Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands and New Zealand at the time suspended their funding for UNRWA.

After he quit, Krähenbühl’s supporters suggested that he had been cleared of the charges, and that he had been the victim of a conspiracy between Washington, Jerusalem and a pro-Israel Swiss foreign minister. However, an investigation by Swiss newspaper Le Temps, and a former UNRWA ethics inspector, confirmed the opposite.

It is reckless for the Red Cross to appoint as its leader someone who remains tainted by a major scandal of corruption, abuse of power and ethics violations.

The Red Cross under its current leadership is already biased against Israel. The last thing that the Red Cross needs at the moment is a new corrupt, biased official at its helm.

Tell the Red Cross: rescind the appointment now. Stop Krähenbühl.