ISRAEL - Sept. 6 - Red Cross Hopes To Resolve Dispute.

Nicolas Michel, representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, says he was hopeful a long-running dispute over national emblems that is blocking Israel's admission to the international Red Cross movement could be solved by the end of 2000. He says much hard work had to be done. Michel tells a news conference at the end of a 2-day meeting of officials from over 100 countries discussing the emblem problem: "We have good hope that further contacts in the coming weeks will enable us to reach our aim". (The meeting was called by Switzerland, which is depository of the Geneva Conventions on how warfare can be conducted, after the failure of earlier efforts to get agreement on allowing Israel to use a red diamond as its symbol. Israel's humanitarian relief movement, Magen Davis Adom, uses a red Star of David and has therefore been barred from the Red Cross movement, which currently recognises only the cross and crescent symbols.) Diplomats say Arab countries still suspicious of Israel are reluctant to agree to changes. The red diamond was dropped on the grounds that it was close to a distress sign used by ships and by trucks carrying flammable materials. The American Red Cross society, which argues that Israel should be admitted using its current symbol, is holding back payment of its US$5m annual dues to the federation until the issue is settled. The Swiss government hopes to reach a consensus on the issue among the movement's 176 members in time for it to call a diplomatic conference at the end of October of all 188 countries that have signed the Geneva Conventions. (That gathering would then approve the new symbol, allowing Israel to come in as a voting member.) Diplomats say they saw little sign of an early breakthrough. One European envoy says: "The real issue is simply that some countries simply don't want Israel in the movement yet".