Rhetorical: Alma now uses this antipathy to the Lamanites against the Ammonihahites. He declares that God will look more favorably upon the Lamanites that the Ammonihahites should they not repent. This has to be a tremendous shock. It is difficult to find an appropriate modern contrast to indicate what the likely impact of this statement would have been upon the Ammonihahites. Perhaps the best modern parallel would be a modern Alma declaring to a Jewish congregation that the Lord was going to look more favorably upon the Nazi’s than upon them (note that this example is given for the extreme of the contrast rather than an implication of a particular call to the Jews to repent). It must have hit those people as similarly inconceivable.