Trump Card (Hal Cohen)

  Jan. 11, 2009 (World News Trust) -- One of my closest friends and I argue politics a lot.  He would regularly defend the position put forth by the Republican Party, and he would eventually acknowledge that his was the losing side of the argument.  However, from time to time he got tired of losing and he would play his trump card.  For those unfamiliar with the term, a trump card is like a wild card on steroids -- not only can it be what it needs to be, it flat out wins, even against an ace.

  So, there I am successfully arguing all that’s wrong with right-wing nuttery, and my friend pulls out his trump card, and I’ve got no choice but to agree that he wins one argument.  What is his trump card?  Israel.  I do not believe in absolutism.  I vote for people and not parties, and I only joined the Democratic Party when I decided that the Republican Party had moved too far to the right for me to remain neutral.

  At this point, I feel it necessary to say, that you’ve probably noticed my last name, and yes, I openly admit a pro-Israel bias.  However, I also claim that I am not an “Israel right or wrong” person.  Reading and watching traditional media, and the photosphere, I find my sentiments more closely aligned with the right on this issue than the left.  Is the current Israeli offensive in Gaza the right course of action?  I don’t know.  Those on the right support it.  Those on the left seem to flat out condemn it.

  There are those on the left who will portray my failure to condemn the incursion as being insensitive to a humanitarian tragedy.  I acknowledge their position, but I disagree.  The biggest problem in the West, regardless of the side one takes, is a fundamental lack of understanding of the Middle East.  Socrates would tell you that this admission is the first step toward wisdom.

  I saw an article written after a suicide bombing where the parents of the “martyr” expressed the pride they felt that their son had done this for them.  Pause for a moment.  Parents were expressing pride that a child gave his life to improve the quality of life for the parents.  In any world that I would want to live in, every parent seeing a child dying would cry out to their God: "Please take me instead!"  Am I wrong in believing that in the West it is a universal belief that children are the future?

  There is a story that talks about fighting extremism that includes the question and answer:
"How do you fight people willing to die for their cause?  Oblige them."  It’s not that easy.  You cannot kill them all.  In the sequel to “The Never Ending Story,”  the question was, "How do you defeat someone who’s heart is empty? -- fill it.  The only way to defeat people who don’t value life is to give their lives value.

  Easier said than done.

  Hal Cohen is editor and publisher of Mollynyc.com