Support Israel, for she has always yearned for peace

In Theriesenstadt, a few years ago, workers discovered the remains of a makeshift synagogue that had been hidden since the second world war. Theriesenstadt was a transit camp. Jews were taken there temporarily, to be moved on eventually to the gas chambers and extermination camps. Yet, though they knew they were going to die, the Jews of Theriesenstadt refused to allow themselves to be dehumanised. They organised a school and adult education classes. Children painted pictures and composers wrote music, some of which have survived. And they prayed. They turned a hidden basement room into a synagogue. It was this that was rediscovered.

On the walls they had written verses and quotations. Most moving was the line from the liturgy for Mondays and Thursdays: "Yet despite all this, we have not forgotten Your name. We implore You - do not forget us." How will we ever understand the spiritual majesty of Jews who, in the valley of the shadow of death, kept their faith, and spoke to G-d, and refused to grant evil a victory? Not for nothing do we say in our prayers that the victims of the Holocaust died al kiddush ha-shem - sanctifying the name of G-d. Seldom if ever have such heights been reached in such depths.

Yet even as we wonder at the faith of such individuals, we know why the State of Israel had, and has, to be. For almost 2,000 years after the destruction of the second Temple, Jews had been without power. That left them, time and again, vulnerable to every shift of the political wind. However long they had lived in a country, however much they contributed to its trade and commerce, arts and sciences, they were regarded as outsiders. Whenever it suited rulers or church leaders to blame them for the troubles of the world, they did, and Jews had no defence. Think, simply, of the words diaspora Jewish history added to the dictionary of mankind. Ghetto. Pogrom. Holocaust. After the Shoah such an existence was intolerable, and so the UN voted Israel into existence.

Israel has changed the terms of Jewish life. Instead of the tragedy of powerlessness, it faces the dilemmas of power. From the very day the state was born, Israel was attacked on all fronts by all its neighbours. And so it has been, one way or another, for 54 years. No other nation among the almost 200 represented at the UN has had its very right to exist repeatedly challenged and denied. No nation has fought more bravely in war; and none has sought more actively for peace.

That was the offer David Ben Gurion made on the first Yom Ha'atzmaut, 54 years ago in Israel's Declaration of Independence. "We extend our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples," he said, "in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people."

The offer was rejected with contempt. Similarly, in 1967, when Israel again offered to negotiate peace in return for territories captured during the Six Day War, it was met by a wall of refusal. A meeting of Arab leaders in Khartoum stated 'no peace, no negotiation, no recognition'.

One of the remarkable facts about Israel is that the leaders portrayed as hardline have been among the boldest in the search for peace. It was Menachem Begin who made peace with Egypt. The Madrid talks, precursors of the peace process, were initiated by Yitzhak Shamir. One former chief of staff, Yitzhak Rabin, lost his life because of his support for the Oslo accords. Another, Ehud Barak, made the most generous offer ever given to the Palestinians. The passion for peace among Israelis is not confined to an elite or a minority. It is something that has driven the vast majority of the population from the very beginning. Tragically, it has not been reciprocated.

For the past eighteen months Israel has been fighting a battle for its very existence. It has been waged on two fronts. The first has been a campaign of terror: blind in its hate; suicidal in its methods; directed against innocent civilians, young and old, women and children, ordinary people going on a bus, eating in a restaurant, or getting ready for a seder. There have been 12,500 such attacks since September 2000. No country has had to face an assault of this intensity, and its aim has been simple - to make everyday life impossible all over Israel.

The second has been a massive onslaught against Israel in the world's media. Ha'aretz, bent on peace, has been labelled the aggressor, while Palestinian terror has been redefined as justified anger.

The result has been an extraordinary double standard. America and its allies are justified in fighting terror far away. Israel, fighting terror on its doorstep, is not. Let none of us be in any doubt. Terror, a deliberate attack on innocent civilians, is always wrong. Self-defence on the part of a country seeking to secure the safety of innocent civilians is always justified. No country could tolerate what Israelis have had to suffer. No one who cares about peace, justice, and the rule of law should defend terror.

Israel needs our support in one of the most agonising trials it has ever faced. It has earned that support many times over. It has been the only country to offer the Palestinians a future. Egypt did not offer them a state when, for 19 years, it controlled Gaza. Nor did Jordan when, for the same period, it controlled the West Bank. One Arab country after another has exploited the Palestinians ruthlessly, giving them guns instead of food, and using their cause as a pretext to deflect criticism from totalitarian regimes.

As I reflect on that inscription on the wall in Theriesenstadt, I am awed by the spiritual courage of our ancestors. But I am no less awed at the physical courage of those who said we must live, not die, for our faith. That is the battle Israel is fighting today. Israel has brought blessing to the Jewish people. Given the chance, it will bring blessing to its neighbours also, the moment they acknowledge its right to exist in peace. No nation should be denied that right, and none has earned it more.

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