The US could well take a look at who its friends are and arent.
A clear and appropriate litmus test is the killing of bin Laden.
If you stood with the US on this, it may or may not mean you are a friend of the US. Its a pretty simple moral issue.
However, if you stood against the US on this, it definitely does mean that you are not a friend of the US.
Bin Laden killed some 3,000 US citizens in cold blood; wreaked havoc on the US economy; caused the unnecessary expenditure of untold billions of dollars in security costs (i.e., in anti-bin Ladenlike acts); and poisoned relations between many Muslims and many others.
The Palestinian rulers of the Gaza Strip Hamas stand against the US on the killing of bin Laden.
Hamas wants Israel exterminated. Officially.
Hamas has joined the Palestinian Authority. No compromise on Hamas call to exterminate Israel was a condition of this unity pact.
By association, the PA stands against the US, though it supported bin Ladens killing.
Read the related IJN blog posting
Human Rights Watch, which finds ample and frequent reason to condemn Israel, condemned the killing of bin Laden. This should convey an accurate sense of the validity of HRWs condemnations of Israel.
Try this:
His [bin Ladens] death should also bring an end to a horrific chapter of human rights abuses in the name of counterterrorism.
The man who said that is Iain Levine, deputy executive director at HRW. To him, the killing of bin Laden was a human rights abuse.
We are pleased to note that among those not joining the criticism of the US is UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. He praised the death of bin Laden as a watershed moment in our common global fight against terrorism.
Our?
Common?
Hamas does not include itself in our. For Hamas, there is no common global fight against terrorism. For Hamas, the right fight is the infliction of terrorists acts on Israeli kids on a school bus, Israeli kids in a play yard, and on other such innocents.
When the Palestinian Authority comes to the UN to seek recognition of Palestine as a state, ask the PA this question:
Will a state which embraces Hamas, which embraces bin Laden, make peace with Israel or war with Israel?
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
