To the matter at hand ...
Jeff Jacoby wrote an excellent column in memory of the world's leading terrorist "Arafat the Monster" in which he argued:

In a better world, the PLO chief would have met his end on a gallows, hanged for mass murder much as the Nazi chiefs were hanged at Nuremberg. In a better world, the French president would not have paid a visit to the bedside of such a monster. In a better world, well-wishers would not be flocking to the hospital grounds to create a makeshift shrine of flowers, candles, and admiring messages. In a better world, George Bush would not have said, on hearing the first reports that Arafat had died, "God bless his soul."

God bless his soul? What a grotesque thing to say! Bless the soul of the man who brought modern terrorism to the world?

This lack of forgiveness bothered Pat Buchanan:

In defense of President Bush, if that was his first reaction to Arafat's death, it bespeaks a Christian heart. As a boy in World War II, I was taught by Catholic nuns that while permissible to pray for the death of Hitler or Tojo, it was impermissible to pray for their damnation. That was hatred, and hatred is a sin.

(Credit to James Taranto's brilliantly named "Arafat's Amen Corner" at Best of the Web Today.)
Jacoby has written a reply to Buchanan "When hatred is necessary"

That is what Elie Wiesel meant, when he visited Auschwitz on the 50th anniversary of its liberation and entreated, "God of forgiveness, do not forgive those who created this place." That is what the rabbis meant when they taught, many centuries ago, that he who is merciful to the cruel will end up being cruel to the merciful. "Hate the sin but love the sinner" is a beautiful rule to follow in most of our dealings with others. But when it comes to those who torture and murder without qualm, who are pitiless in the pain they inflict on others -- when it comes to such people, hatred is no sin.

This theme has been explored in the journal First Things, in a brilliant essay by Meir Y. Soleveichik titled "The Virtue of Hate." Soleveichik, scion of a rabbinic family, writes that in his weekly get-togethers with a friend who is an Episcopal priest, "there was one issue . . . on which we could never agree: Is an utterly evil man -- Hitler, Stalin, Osama bin Laden -- deserving of a theist's love? I could never stomach such a notion, while Fr. Jim would argue passionately in favor" of it.

Hatred is dangerous even when justified, Soleveichik cautions, and must be directed only at the truly vicious and depraved. "We who hate must be wary," he writes, "lest we . . . become like those we are taught to despise."

But when hatred is called for, he notes, it serves a vital function. "Hate allows us to keep our guard up, to protect us. When we are facing those who seek nothing but our destruction, our hate reminds us who we are dealing with. When hate is appropriate, then it is not only virtuous, but essential."

Notably, Jacoby ignored Buchanan's less savory comments about "neo-conservatives" and limited his response to the theological.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.