Israel's leaders were caricatured as Fagin, Shylock, Pontius Pilate and Hitler on the front pages of newspapers throughout Europe.

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Her former colleagues at the Getty have nothing to learn from Pontius Pilate when it comes to washing their hands.

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The letter to the Northern Ireland Office claimed the Secretary of State Owen Paterson had washed his hands in a "Pontius Pilate" way, ignoring the incompetence of the Commission.

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Do credible historians agree that the man named Jesus, who the Christian Bible speaks of, walked the earth and was put to death on a cross by Pilate, Roman governor of Judea?

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In Mr. McBurney and Edward Kemp's version, the Master's novel, several scenes of which are shown, details Pontius Pilate negotiating with a naked preacher, Yeshua Ha-Notsri (echoing the Hebrew for "Jesus of Nazareth").

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Over the summer the UK government, in the shape of the former Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson, was accused by unionists of acting like Pontius Pilate, washing his hands of decisions on parades.

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The Vatican itself owns what it believes to be a fragment of the table from the Last Supper and marble stairs that are the same ones Jesus ascended on His way to appear before Pontius Pilate.

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It cannot wash its hands in Pontius Pilate fashion of either the ICC-wanted M23 warlord Bosco Ntaganda, also known as The Terminator, or Laurent Nkunda, who is wanted by the Congolese government for war crimes and is under house arrest in Kigali.

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