Turning an enemy into a friend

The following thoughts are excerpts from an article titled The humanity of our enemies.

Usually on a holiday we chant the full Hallel, Psalms giving thanks to God for His kindness to us. Not so the last six days of Pesach. We shorten Hallel, recognizing that we may have escaped from Egypt, but they had to suffer ten plagues, they drowned in the sea. For the second of the four cups of wine on Passover, we remove a drop for each plague, diminishing our joy just a bit. And who can forget the famous passage in Megillot, when the Israelites crossed the sea and the angels on high began singing God's praises. God rebuked them, "My children are drowning, how can you sing praises."
...How should we relate to our enemy? Judaism is clear. "Who is strong?" Avot de Rabbi Natan teaches, "Whoever turns an enemy into a friend." The Talmud tells the story of Rabbi Meir and his wife Beruriah. Meir had a vicious enemy that used to stalk him as he walked to the Beit HaMidrash. Once he stood praying for his enemy's demise. His wife stopped him, "Don't pray for his death, pray that he change his ways."
http://www.heartfelt.com/pesach.htm

Robert Avrech has blogged about a clip shown on Egyptian TV in which a Muslim cleric "instructs that if you want to learn how to hate Jews, just study the Koran. It's the authoratative text."
He writes, "And make no mistake about it, the hatred of Jews has nothing to do with so-called occupation or so-called settlements, just as the Arab-Israeli conflict has nothing to do with national boundaries.
Mr. Avrech concludes that "the so-called peace process is and will remain a dangerous delusion until the Arab Muslim world frees itself from the malignancy of Jew-hatred."
To watch the video, click here.