The book of Matthew explains further that “It was the governor’s custom during a festival to set free one prisoner, whomever the crowd asked for.” So “the head cohanim persuaded the crowd to ask for Bar-Abba’s release and to have Yeshua executed at the stake” (27:15, 21; emphasis added).

When Pilate once more appealed to the Jews, “because he wanted to release Yeshua”, the Jews “yelled, ‘Put him to death on the stake! Put him to death on the stake!'” So Pilate said he would agree “to have him flogged and set free”. But insisting on blood, the Jews “went on yelling insistently, demanding that he be executed on the stake; and their shouting prevailed” (Luke 23:20-23; emphasis added).

Pilate relented and agreed to the Jews’ demand. “When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but rather that a riot was starting, he took water, washed his hands in front of the crowd, and said, ‘My hands are clean of this man’s blood it’s your responsibility.’ All the people answered, ‘His blood is on us and on our children!‘” (Matthew 27:23-24; emphasis added).

So the Romans took Yeshua and flogged him, and put a crown of thorns on his head. And Pilate again said, “You take him out yourselves and put him to death on the stake, because I don’t find any case against him.” It was not for violating Roman law that Yeshua was crucified, for “the Judeans answered him, ‘We have a law; according to that law, he ought to be put to death, because he made himself out to be the Son of God'” (John 19:6-7; emphasis added).

Now, one could argue that the New Testament account is not historically accurate, and the whole business about Jews having responsibility for the death of Yeshua was entirely an invention of the gospel writers. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, apparently, if we hold to Webster’s logic, were Nazi propagandists ahead of their time, and also perhaps—Luke excepted—”self-hating Jews” (as a Gentile, Luke would have been just a regular old “anti-Semite”).

But there’s no sense at all in denying that the Bible says what it says, as Webster does—something which forces us to the conclusion either that he’s either never actually ever read the gospel accounts before, or simply chooses to be dishonest in the hopes his readers have never actually read them. Or perhaps he thinks he has Jedi mind powers, like Obi-Wan Kenobi when he waves his hand and tells the stormtroopers, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”

Besides the gospels, there is also the account offered by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who alludes to the role of the Jewish religious leaders in Yeshua’s death by noting that “Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross” (Antiquities of the Jews, Book XVIII, Chapter 3; emphasis added).

Now, none of this is to say the Gentiles did not kill Yeshua. The Romans were—needless to say—guilty of the crime of executing an innocent man. As Stern notes, Pilate “did not escape his share of the responsibility for Yeshua’s death by merely washing his hands” (Commentary, p. 82).

But if we reject that Josephus and the gospel writers were their era’s equivalent of Nazi propagandists, then neither can Stephen C. Webster and Charles Krauthammer (and whomever else) wash the Jews’ hands of the whole affair—who were equally guilty in the crime as Pilate and the Roman soldiers who actually nailed Yeshua to the cross.

Nor is any of this to say that there hasn’t been persecution of Jews by anti-Semitic Christians through the centuries.

Rather, observation being made here is that both Christians who invoke the Jews’ role for the killing of Yeshua in the Bible in an attempt to justify their anti-Semitism and Jews who invoke anti-Semitism in an attempt to whitewash their role are missing the whole point of the story. As Stern explains, “Everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, is a sinner. By sinning, everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, killed him. Therefore everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, is guilty of Yeshua’s death.”

One needn’t subscribe to the Christian religion or believe the Bible is the Word of God in order to benefit from the moral of this story. It’s a story played out all around the world every day. You can see it told on the evening news. You can read it in the papers. As the gospel of Bob Marley puts the question to us, “How long shall they kill our prophets, while we stand aside and look?”

Every human being makes choices, both individually and as a society, and those choices have consequences—often bloody, with the deaths of innocents.

The Jews of Israel, for instance, cannot simply wash their hands of the consequences of their choices—such as the deaths and suffering of the people of Gaza—any more than could Pontius Pilate cleanse himself of guilt in the crucifixion.

Similarly, the U.S. government cannot simply wash its hands of the bloody consequences of its choice to support Israel and to defend its policies and its actions.

Nor can the American people wash off the blood that is on their hands as a result of their choice to ignore what their government does around the world, to pretend they have no power or control over what choices their leaders make, to look the other way, to say, “It’s not my problem.”

Many are quick to deny and point the finger and pin responsibility elsewhere. Many are the hypocrites, who, like the religious leaders of Yeshua’s time, present themselves as righteous and innocent of wrongdoing, while refusing to apply to themselves the same standard by which they judge others; who refuse to heed Yeshua’s warning: “Don’t judge, so that you won’t be judged. For the way you judge others is how you will be judged—the measure with which you measure out will be used to measure to you.… You hypocrite! First, take the log out of your own eye; then you will see clearly, so that you can remove the splinter from your brother’s eye!” (Matthew 7:1-2, 5)

Jew and Gentile alike, Israeli and American alike, we have all been warned. We all have a choice. The New Testament teaches that choosing contrary to the moral choice leads down a path towards self-destruction. Regardless of whether one is religious or not, it would be wise to heed this sensible warning.

The United States of America, like Israel, is slowly destroying itself. This fact is evident in the violent actions of its government; in the state of its economy; in the destruction of the environment; in its unsustainable drive to control and consume natural resources; in the attribution to institutional corporate behavior consequences that are the result of individual and collective human choices; in the intellectual culture of its political commentators; in the hypocrisy of its religious leaders; in the ignorance and apathy of its citizens.

How long will we continue down the path of self-destruction? How long will we wash our hands of the consequences of our own actions? How long will we, Jews and Gentiles alike, continue to nail Yeshua to the cross?