© Léon Cogniet (1824)Scène du massacre des Innocents (“Scene of the massacre of the Innocents”), by Léon Cogniet (1824).
Despite all the chaos coming out of Washington, and despite the unending bluster and chest-beating, there is also much consistency when it comes to Israel, and its bloodlust. People often say that President Donald Trump has no ideology and that everything he does is transactional, the "art of the deal." But he also is completely blind to the genocide in Gaza and gushes with empathy for the Israeli hostages. How can this blind spot be explained, if not by way of ideology?
For example, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem visited the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem on May 25, 2025, shortly after arriving in Israel. During her visit, she was seen praying and reflecting at this site. She is an evangelical, which means Zionist, in the end.
Noem was accompanied by U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and his wife Janet Huckabee. She was welcomed by Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the Rabbi of the Western Wall and the Holy Sites, and Mordechai (Suli) Eliav, Director of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, who explained the importance of the site.
During the visit, Noem and the Rabbi recited a Psalm and offered a special prayer in memory of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., who were recently killed in a shooting attack. They also prayed for the swift and safe return of all hostages.
At the conclusion of her visit, Noem placed a note in the stones of the Western Wall and inscribed in the guest book: "Israel is God's chosen people - we stand with you." Noem also posted a video of herself praying at the Western Wall, with the message: "hate will not have the last word."
Meanwhile, just a little to the west of that Wall, infants are starving, women and children are shredded to bits by American bombs, or burnt to death in endless holocausts. In Gaza, there are no hospitals, no bread, no water, no place to sleep, no hope of any rescue, because the leaders of the world are too busy looking away.
Hate does not need "the last word" when it has an infinite supply of bombs. Endless sorrow and mourning for two Israeli staffers. Nary a sound for the genocide just down the road. Compassion is the first casualty of ideology.
Of course, many will say that it is the very nature of Washington to commission cruelties little and immense, to nurture bloodlust, to delight in mass murder, to be complicit in genocide. Slaughter is part of the job description, in the grand work of spreading "American democracy." It is a very old story in the long and bloody road that is America's encounter with the world. All this is certainly true, but within this sanguinary worldview, there is a special place for Israel, for it is always held up as the "chosen nation." The obvious question to ask is who has done the choosing? Any reference to "god" in this context can only strengthen the camp of the atheists.
Could it be America has chosen Israel, because Israel is America unleashed?
If there is one "virtue" that may be attributed to Trump's reign, it is the great capacity to revel in power, whether it be money or military might. And hence Israel's "chosen" status — for it can handle power with no deference to morality, with no pretense of seeking out the good. Thus, the world may go into spasms of outrage at yet more atrocities carried out on the helpless Palestinians. But all the while, Israel continues its killings, implements its agenda of destroying any means of life for the Palestinians in their own native land. The purpose of all this cruelty is simple — make life so miserable that Palestinians will agree to flee.
The world sits back and watches in horror — and mostly importantly — it just sits back. Murderous power once unleashed is difficult, it not impossible, to restrain, because retrain requires the expenditure of an equal amount of counter-power. And aside from the brave Houthis, what nation will volunteer to use force against Israel? The short answer is — none.
To stop the genocide, there must first be a great reserve of moral courage, because of the many hardships that must then be endured. (Just ask the Houthis. Will any nation want to be treated in a similar way and stick up for the people of Gaza?)
Alas, if there are two things in which most of the world is greatly deficient, it is morality and courage. The two often go hand in hand.
Thus, when ordinary citizens protest in the streets of their cities and demand their politicians do all in their power to stop the great slaughter of the innocent, nothing happens. A lot of steam is let off; a great deal of yelling gets done — but Israel kills even more innocents.
Could it be that politics no longer functions on morality, that it is only concerned with dispensing power? Hence, the oft-recited mantra, "it's the economy, stupid?" Look after the money, and everything else will look after itself. Money is the morality, and power is its dispensation. "In God we trust," says the American dollar. Money is holy.
Thus, minions like Noem kowtow to those they serve. In Washington, such service is known as "loyalty." As a reward, these same minions are permitted to handle some power and deal it out. And they do so as viciously as possible, to demonstrate that their masters did not wrongly choose — for they too are the "chosen" ones. Cruelty always chooses its own.
Where does all this lead? To a grander hegemony, which declares that the world can only belong to the moneyed; those who might disagree with be given the "Gaza treatment." Such are "our values," such is the "rules-based order," such is the "rule of law," such is the way of a world that has chosen to live beyond good and evil.
In a world with no moral references, Israel is America unleashed.
The current Western "morality" is total relativism, claiming there is no right and wrong. And declaring everything else a "societal construct". Historically this used to be called nihilism or satanism. Right - only, that god is Moloch.