Such is Marc Tracy's response to the news that Hamas, unlike the current Palestinian Authority leadership, condemned America's killing of Osama bin Laden.
Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip (who claimed the title of "prime minister" before last week's reconciliation agreement), harshly condemned the U.S.:
We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood. We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior. We ask God to offer him mercy with the true believers and the martyrs.
Haniyeh spoke with reporters after PA spokesman Ghassan Khatib praised the U.S. action as "good for the cause of peace":
Getting rid of Bin Laden is good for the cause of peace worldwide but what counts is to overcome the discourse and the methods -- the violent methods -- that were created and encouraged by Bin Laden and others in the world.
Maan News Agency's report is to the same effect:
The Palestinian Authority's caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad called the death a step toward peace in the world, while Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh condemned the assassination, saying it was a continuation of "oppressive US policy."
Marc Tracy comments:
Hamas’s take on bin Laden’s killing is . . . unbelievably disturbing. . . . You can make compromises—you can make peace—with those with whom you disagree, even vehemently. But you have to be living on the same planet. And people who unequivocally condemn the killing of bin Laden are not living on the same planet as mainstream Israelis, and Israelis shouldn’t be required to move to that planet in order to make peace.
Put otherwise, Hamas being against the killing of bin Laden poses a major problem for Palestinian hopes for statehood through a peace agreement with Israel. And they have no realistic hopes for statehood without a peace agreement.