Politicians and activists will gather at the Jewish Museum today to celebrate the inclusion of Israel’s equivalent of the Red Cross, the Magen David Adom, in the international Red Cross organization.

Senator Clinton and Israel’s consul general in New York, Arye Mekel, will address members of the New York chapter of the American Red Cross and members of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York at a breakfast in celebration of the decision. Israel originally petitioned for its inclusion in 1949.

The celebration comes less than a week after the June 22 vote at the International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, when Israel’s Magen David Adom and the Palestinian Red Crescent were simultaneously accepted into the organization. The vote followed a December amendment to the Geneva Convention that recognizes the red crystal – a sign devoid of religious or political connotation – as a symbol of the organization.

Israel will use the Star of David inside the red crystal as its international symbol and the red crystal alone as its sign of protection under the Geneva Convention. The December amendments to the convention made it a crime to interfere with an ambulance marked with the red crystal.

Mrs. Clinton, who is the keynote speaker at today’s breakfast, praised the decision the day it was made. “The International Red Cross has finally rectified a tremendous injustice,” she said. In the past she urged the international Red Cross to accept Magen David Adom with its own emblem. “MDA should not be required to give up or diminish its use of its emblem as a condition for immediate and full membership in the Movement,” a letter signed by Mrs. Clinton in 2001 read.

A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Ian Piper, said there has been no official request for the recognition of the Star of David since 1949.