What Sort of Society Would Celebrate the Brutal Killing of a 4-Year Old Child?

Possibly as early as tomorrow, Israel will release multible murderer Samir Kuntar as part of a "prisoner exchange" for the bodies of Israeli kidnapped soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. On April 22, 1979, when Israeli police cornered Kuntar and three other terrorists on the beach at Nahariya, Kuntar shot one of his hostages, Danny Haran, in front of Haran's four-year old daughter, Einat. He then proceeded to crush Einat's head on the rocks of the beach with the butt of his rifle.

Smadar Haran Kaiser is the widow of Danny Haran. (She has since remarried.) She is the mother of Einat. She is also the mother of another victim of Kuntar, two-year old Anat Haran. When Haran and his fellow terrorists entered the Nahariya apartment building where the Harans lived, Smadar and Anat hid in a crawl space above the bedroom in their apartment. Trying to muffle the cries of her small child, to avoid detection by the terrorists, Smadar accidentally smothered Anat.

Recently, Smadar wrote in the Washington Post:

"It is hard for anyone with normal sensibilities to comprehend how someone can feel joy and hatred while smashing in the head of a four-year-old child. What kind of pathology can cause a society to celebrate such evil?"

We will soon find out. The Jerusalem Post reports:

According to the Lebanese media, Kuntar will be given a festive reception by Hizbullah at its headquarters in southern Beirut, and welcomed personally by its leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. He will then travel to Aabey, the mountain village where he was born on July 20, 1962, and, according to village leader Nazih Hamza, there will be a huge celebration for him there.

Lebanon has just formed a national unity government under a Qatar-brokered deal, in which Hizbullah has two ministers and veto power. Lebanon's prime minister, Fuad Saniora, has indicated that his government supports the festivities planned for Kuntar. A recent statement issued by Saniora's office said he shared with the Lebanese people the joy of the upcoming release of prisoners by Israel, including that of Kuntar.

If "Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate" is the God that I worship, He will someday call these evil people to account for their celebrations in honor of the release of the cruel, brutal, merciless murderer of a four-year old child.