Uri Avnery, writer, peace activist, and an Israeli Jew with a refined moral conscience, evaluates the remaining US presidential candidates—McCain, Clinton, Obama—including their attitudes to Israel.

Here a Jew will pop the classic question: Is it good for the Jews?

The people who claim to speak for the American Jews, the “leaders” who were not elected by anyone, the chiefs of the fetid “organizations”, are conducting a dirty campaign of defamation and sly hints against [Obama]. If his middle name is Hussein and he is black, he must be an “Arab-lover”. Also, he did not distance himself enough from the anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan.

The same “leaders” are in bed with the most loathsome racists in the US, obscurantist fundamentalists and blood-stained neo-cons. But most American Jews know that their place is not there. The unholy alliance with those types will inevitably come home to roost. The Jews have to be where they have always been: in the progressive camp, striving for equality and the separation between state and religion.

It must be asked: Is it good for Israel?

All three candidates have groveled at the feet of AIPAC. The fawning of all three before the Israeli leadership is disgusting. They all show a lack of integrity. But I know that they have no choice. That’s how it is in the USA.

In spite of this, Obama succeeded in getting out one courageous sentence. Speaking before a mainly Jewish audience in Cleveland, he said: “There is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, you’re anti-Israel and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.”

More here.