Abbas didn't have to honor terrorist-Here's a question Barack Obama might want to ask Abbas

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | 7-20-08 | STEVE HUNTLEY

[SJackson]

Here's a question Barack Obama might want to ask Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas when they meet in the Middle East next week: How could you, Mr. President, join in the unseemly celebration of a child murderer as a "hero"?

There's not much chance of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee posing such an impolitic question during his get-together with Abbas in Ramallah on the West Bank. Yet it goes to the heart of the culture of the Palestinian side of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and to the hopes of eventually achieving a lasting peace deal.

The child murderer is Samir Kuntar, whom the Israelis freed in a prisoner swap that brought home the bodies of two Israeli soldiers kidnapped -- and, as it turned out, fatally wounded -- in an attack two years ago that ignited a monthlong war in southern Lebanon between Israel and the terrorist organization Hezbollah. The freeing of Kuntar has long been a terrorist goal; the two Israeli soldiers had been kidnapped to try to win his release.

In 1979, Kuntar participated in a terrorist raid into Israel, killing a father in front of his daughter's eyes and then using his rifle butt to smash the 4-year-old girl's head against a rock. As these atrocities took place, the girl's mother hid with a 2-year-old daughter and, in trying to keep the child from crying, inadvertently smothered her. This raid was a crime that in its horror beggars the imagination and rends the heart. Kuntar also murdered a police officer in the attack.

[SJackson]

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I'm thinking Barak isn't going to get hung up about dead 4 year olds.

[freema]

I wonder, if BO had the girls along, would he let Samir babysit?

[Typical_Whitey]

Maybe he just as soon figures that the little israeli children were punishments to their parents so it was a good thing after all....???

[justiceseeker93]

There's not much of a chance of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee posing such an impolitic question during his get-together with Abbas in Ramallah on the West Bank.

Exactly. The main topic of discussion will be talk about their mutual Palestinian (and maybe other Arab) buddies in Chicago.