This week, Americans were given a brutal lesson in terms of the limits that are on "free speech" in areas of race and politics.

John Kerry was speaking about the challenges standing in the way of a peace between Israelis and Palestinians at a closed-door meeting with members of the Trilateral Commission, which supposedly brings together world leaders from North America, Asia and Europe to discuss issues of global concern.

As most people should realize in today's high-tech world, nothing is said in private. Kerry's speech was recorded by someone who gave a copy to online news website, The Daily Beast, a spin-off of the longtime print news magazine, Newsweek.

Kerry was already being attacked by Israelis and their supporters before he told the Trilateral Commission that countries that deny rights to large groups of people because of religious and racial reasons, as Israel in fact does, could end up becoming an "apartheid state."

Now, you need to know. American morality and ethics is defined by a sliding scale that excuses Americans while holding its critics to tougher standards. It's called the "relativity of politics." What it means is that bad isn't always bad. Something could be "badder" or "worse" than something else.

Killing five people is bad. Killing 100 people is worse. Killing people who are white is worse than killing people who are black. Killing Americans is even far worse than killing people who are Arab or Muslim.

That sliding scale of American morality, the relativity of politics, applies to everything including issues.

South Africa was an apartheid state because it intentionally discriminated against blacks and gave whites special benefits denied to whites.

But on the sliding scale of American morality, Israel is not an "apartheid state" even though it intentionally discriminates against Christian and Muslim Arabs, and denies them equal rights not just in Israel, but in the occupied West Bank.

For some strange reason, Kerry decided to toss out the hypocritical sliding scale and apply the fundamentals that were used to define true American Democracy and Freedom, based on our U.S. Constitution.

And he made his comment that was transcribed from an audiotape by The Daily Beast both carefully and with caution.

Kerry said: "A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens — or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state. Once you put that frame in your mind, that reality, which is the bottom line, you understand how imperative it is to get to the two-state solution, which both leaders, even yesterday, said they remain deeply committed to."

What Kerry says is reasonable. It's factual. But, it violates one of the silent laws that exists in America today: Americans cannot criticize Israel, even though Israel is a foreign country that not only has murdered many Americans from the U.S.S. Liberty soldiers in 1967 to Rachel Corrie in 2003, but has also stolen American secrets, as was done by American Jonathon Pollard.

As soon as Kerry said the word "apartheid," people in the meeting who were recording his words felt obligated to expose Kerry to Israel's powerful supporters.

And in an amazing display of punitive power, Israel came down hard on Kerry through their Fifth Column advocates:

Abe Foxman, the anti-Arab-driven president of the wrongly named Anti-Defamation League screamed, "It is startling and deeply disappointing that a diplomat so knowledgeable and experienced about democratic Israel chose to use such an inaccurate and incendiary term."

AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group that serves as centurion in Washington, D.C., politics, decried, "Any suggestion that Israel is, or is at risk of becoming, an apartheid state is offensive and inappropriate."

Republicans and Democrats, who receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from AIPAC and from its satellite PAC network, were quick on the draw to earn their money:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., demanded Kerry apologize, calling the secretary of state's remarks "extremely disappointing" and saying, "The use of the word apartheid has routinely been dismissed as both offensive and inaccurate, and Secretary Kerry's use of it makes peace even harder to achieve."

Right-wing Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a possible 2016 presidential candidate, shared Cantor's outrage, saying, "These comments are outrageous and disappointing."

Senator Ted Cruz, the crazed Texan, didn't mince words and demanded that Kerry resign.

How dare an American government official use a word that Israel insists should not be used?

It is an amazing example of the power that Israel wields over America, and how the freedoms that we Americans claim to enjoy are affected by the whims of a foreign country. To me, that is the bigger crime than even "apartheid."

Ray Hanania is an award-winning Palestinian American columnist managing editor of The Arab Daily News at www.TheArabDailyNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @RayHanania. To find out more about Ray Hanania and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.