“And the governor said, Why, what evil that man (Jesus) has done? But they cried out more vociferously, shouting, let him die, let him die. And when Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was being  made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person; see ye to it.  Then all the people answered, saying: His blood be on us, and on our children…”Matthew 27 (23-26).

As always in an election year, American presidential contenders are displaying some distinguishable differences on a whole range of political, social and economic issues affecting American voters.

However, there is one single issue that solidly unifies all aspirants to the White House, and it doesn’t matter if you are republican or democrat, black or white, liberal or conservative, religious or unreligious. Everyone must go with the flow because those who don’t will lose and be vilified by the multitudinous tongues of evil men whose pagan god is Israel and religion is Zionism.

This issue is, of course, Israel and its enduring Nazi-like oppression of the Palestinian people.

 In America, as some American intellectuals have come to realize, Israel is not only innocent until proven guilty, as the rest of humanity is treated.  Israel is actually innocent, super-innocent, even if proven guilty a thousand times, as undoubtedly it has been. This benevolent innocence is not a variable; it is an absolute, immutable constant, irrespective of how many thousands of innocent Palestinian and Lebanese civilians Israel murders, how many houses Israel destroys, and how many nefarious crimes Israel commits.

Israel is after all God’s nation and the apple of the Lord’s eye,  and as such  is incapable of being guilty or even mistaken as the late American evangelical leader Jerry Falwell claimed.

Now is the election season, or, more correctly,   the season of political prostitution and moral whoredom, in the United States. In this marketplace of wanton hucksterism, Israel is the ultimate holy cow, the sacrosanct mantra whose invocation justifies the unjustifiable, even the unthinkable.

Maybe many Americans will wonder why a Palestinian living 12000 kilometers away would speak so harshly of their marvelous quadrennial carnival of democracy. Well, in a certain sense I don’t blame them. They are a people whose fanatically ignorant president invaded, occupied and destroyed two sovereign nations, and killed or caused the death of over a million innocent people because “God told him to do it.”

They are a people whose country has been bankrolling and arming to the teeth a manifestly evil state that has been murdering, tormenting and oppressing a nearly helpless people, the Palestinians, on no account other than the fact that the victims are not members of   “the holy tribe.”

It is a country whose top leader had the moral audacity to call Israel’s certified war criminal, Ariel Sharon, may he lodge in hell for eternity, a man of peace. It is a country that is trying to spread democracy overseas by starving and tormenting a people for electing the wrong political party. It is a country that has made words such as “Abu Ghraib”,  “renditions” and “Guantanamo “ household names.

In America, they call it political correctness, since voicing a nonconformist view regarding Israel, however innocuous and reasonable, would amount to a definite political suicide.

It is political suicide to call for peace and justice in Palestine, since “justice” for the Palestinians would always be construed to mean “another holocaust” for Jews. It is political suicide to invoke UN resolutions 242 and 338, as the basis of a prospective peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. It is political suicide to call on Israel to stop targeting Palestinian civilians…because then you are raising questions about Israel’s morality especially its “most moral army.”

It is political suicide to even invoke the very humanity of the Palestinians because Israel’s enemies, or more correctly victims, can’t be really human, at least humans whose humanity is equal or comparable to the humanity of the chosen race!!

In this conspicuously intimidating atmosphere, even a passing allusion to international law and human rights, as guiding considerations for the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, would be sufficient to bring about the political decapitation of any presidential hopeful who dares to even slightly differ with the powerful Zionist cult now enslaving American politics, media and public discourse.

In Jesus’ time, at least the pagan Roman governor of Jerusalem, Pilate, possessed the moral decency to claim innocence of the “blood of this just man.” However, in today’s America, it is very difficult to find a politician with Pilate’s moral caliber, as most, if not all, American politicians, especially presidential contenders, are finding themselves sitting in a house of ill repute, having shed whatever moral conscience they might have had.

Take Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas who is seeking the Republican Party nomination for President as an example. This man who claims to be “Christian” and adhering to  the ideals and teachings of Jesus Christ  has castigated Sen. Barack Obama, one of the two remaining Democratic candidates for the presidency, for merely suggesting a quiet dialogue between the Muslim world and the United States.

“We are deeply troubled by Senator Obama’s desire to hold a summit in the Muslim world, with all the heads of state…many of whom have yet to renounce terrorism or refrain from anti-Semitic incitement,” ranted  Huckabee  recently, emitting his hatred and vindictiveness toward the Muslim world’s 1.5 billion human beings.

Seeking to procure Jewish support, the former Arkansas governor sounded even more Zionist than Ehud Olmert and Shimon Peres:

“No one seeking the presidency in either party is more steadfastly committed to Israel’s security, survival as a ‘Jewish state’, and ability to defend herself than I am. As President, I will ensure that Israel always has the state-of-the-art weaponry and technology she needs. And in addition, I will dramatically increase American defense spending….Together we must prevent nuclear proliferation and defeat Islamofascism.”

Huckabee is not a “black sheep” amongst a host of enlightened and less demagogic contenders. They all, more or less, possess the same fanaticism,  hatefulness, neurotic stupidity   and blind ignorance that make them think that only by  demonizing and crucifying  five million Palestinians will they have a real chance to be the White House’s next master.

Even Obama, who is being accused by an insidiously racist media of being a crypto-Muslim, as if being Muslim were a great sin, has found it essential to pander to the evil cult controlling the American government and media. Yes, his refusal to call the spade a spade with regard to Israeli war crimes, including the dropping of 2-3 million cluster bomblets on Lebanon in the summer of 2006 and the slow-motion genocide now underway against the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza, only underscores the unethical nature of a democracy that is stripped of a moral ceiling.

There is no doubt that wanton rallying of American presidential contenders behind Israeli racism and criminality is a clarion proof of the moral decay of our time.

This undoubtedly will put humanity on a sure course toward moral extinction. This is unless we, as moral beings, re-examine our ways and rediscover anew the ideals justice and morality.