A candidate in the upcoming November elections in Israel may be just the man who could help bring peace to the Middle East, more than anyone we have seen in Israeli politics for a long time, if, that is, you believe anyone short of the Messiah could.
This is the story of Edy Cohen that begins in Lebanon, that unique combination of French, Muslim, and Christian Arab culture that was crushed by Iranian-supported Hezbollah armies. The once prosperous European destination whose civil wars and raging jihadists now churn perched astride Israel’s northern borders.
“We are Lebanese Jews,” Cohen told me as we discussed why he now wants to sit with Benjamin Netanyahu in a new Israeli government. “My family were all born in Beirut’s Jewish neighborhood. But when civil war broke in 1975 all Jews escaped leaving just a few hundred. We stayed.”
Cohen attended a Christian school, the only alternatives being Muslim. He attended church too but resisted praying to Jesus. “I didn’t belong. The children harassed me. They said I killed Jesus. ‘Here...
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