WASHINGTON, May 13 (UPI) -- Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain, with an assist from Sen. Joe Lieberman, competed in freshly minted assurances of allegiance to Israel as it embarked on a weeklong 60th birthday party. Neocons have hinted darkly that Obama, whose middle name is Hussein, was born a Muslim who later grew up as a Christian -- which, they say, makes him an apostate and puts him at risk of execution by an Islamist extremist. Proof of Obama's extraterritorial allegiance? A Hamas official who said, in an interview, "We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election." That was enough for McCain to suggest Obama was soft on terrorism.

This was, needless to add, twaddle in all its unrationed splendor.

Obama didn't stray from Politics 101 in Washington. Time and again his self-portrait is one of unwavering support for Israel -- "though that doesn't mean that I would agree with every action" Israel takes. He called Israel America's most important ally.

Israel, as it entered its seventh decade as a nation-state, celebrated by emphasizing its military prowess, from air supremacy in the Middle East, to the long reach of its paratroopers, to its fast-growing navy, to military battle reconstructions since the war of independence. Israel's battle casualties in seven wars in 60 years: 22,437 killed, the population equivalent of 180,000 U.S. killed in action, or 69,000 more than the United States lost in Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm in 1991, Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

President Bush arrived in Israel this week as the celebrations wound down. It was not a propitious time to lean on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for the kind of concessions that might facilitate the creation of a Palestinian state. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had commuted once a month to the Middle East for the past 12 months and seemed to be the only player who still believed a legacy-starved Bush presidency could produce by the end of 2008 a national Palestinian rabbit out of Israel's silk hat, as pledged at the Annapolis summit last November.