They Honor Us with Their Hate

From They Honor Us with Their Hate:

A picture dated Sept. 12, 2001, made my heart stop. It showed Palestinians, most of them young, all of them male, cheering the deaths of about 3,000 innocent people in America the day before. This was before America's retaliatory invasion of Afghanistan or the war in Iraq. It was also before Guantanamo and before the outrage of Abu Ghraib. In other words, the demonstration by Palestinians in Shatila in Lebanon preceded most of the usual reasons given for why America today is held in contempt. One Islamic state (Iran) and a host of militant organizations - Hamas, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad, and al-Qaeda - fervently wish for Israel's destruction. There is no way the U.S. could appease these groups and not, in the process, trample on its own moral values.