We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters as we pray to G-d: Let Israel live in peace. Let all bloodshed and violence, hate and hostility cease.

In a mere 58 years, a country half the size of Lake Michigan has accomplished the unbelievable, gathering Jews speaking over 80 languages from over 100 countries.

You turned a land with few natural resources into one of the greatest in the modern world. You created a democracy in an area where none exists. You made a desolate land blossom and bear fruit, and developed life saving medical technologies.

You are among the first to respond with humanitarian aid wherever there a natural disaster. Through six decades under threat you have given the world poets and philosophers and musicians and novelists whose heart is Jewish and whose love is for all humanity.

You took the dormant language of the Bible and made it speak again. You took people from the valley of death and made them live again. You took hope – and made it breathe again.

Why does a people who consistently says Yes to life and No to death; Yes to peace and No to terror, have to fight today in Lebanon and Gaza?

The answer is simple, yet we must hear it clearly and unequivocally: Israel must fight today in Lebanon because 6 years ago it withdrew from Lebanon. Israel must fight today in Gaza because 1 year ago it withdrew from Gaza. Israel discovered Mother Theresa’s terrible truth: “No good deed goes unpunished.”

Israel’s enemies have taken Israel’s every goodwill gesture as a sign of weakness. The Oslo Peace Process introduced the first Palestinian suicide attacks in Israel. Israel’s most generous Taba offer led to the most concerted terrorist attacks.

Israel’s painful Gaza withdrawal led within less than a year to 1,000 Kassam rockets on Israeli civilians including children.

Israel withdrew from Lebanon six years ago in full compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 425, immediately broken by Hizbullah. The UN special envoy to Lebanon warned in November 2000: “Such breaches of international peace and security threaten to ignite a new spiral of violence with tragic consequences for the civilian population.”

That failure led in 2004 to UN Security Council Resolution 1559 calling for militias in Lebanon to disarm. Again rejected. Kofi Annan himself protested to the Syrians. The effect? The arming of Hizbullah with weapons that threaten the heart of Israel.

Israel withdrew from Lebanon. It does not want to be there. It does not want to do any of the things it is now doing. It accepted in good faith the UN promise that it would not have to. It acts today only because the international community failed to ensure that its neighbors met their obligations when Israel met hers.

Vulnerable and alone, Israel pursues peace, yearns for peace and sings about peace. It did all it could to pursue peace, but was rewarded with violence and terror.

Does any of us, G-d forbid, take satisfaction at Lebanon’s devastation? Let me be clear. We weep not just for Israel, but for the people of Lebanon, too. Lebanon was once a great country, a center of civilization, a beacon in the Middle East --until Jordan drove its Palestinians into Lebanon. Until Syria used them to terrorize the Lebanese, and until Iran funded and manipulated all of Lebanon, and every man, woman and child, became a hostage, ruining a great country.

Today Israel is fighting in Lebanon so that Israel should not become another Lebanon. Any country will become so if it lacks the clarity and courage to say No to terror and Yes to peace.

We Jews have tragically learned that when our enemies speak of killing us, or wiping us off the face of the earth; they mean what they say.

Hizbullah and Hamas are very clear: We will kill you if you stay, and we will kill you if you leave. We will kill you if you retaliate, and we will kill you if you don’t.

Terror doesn’t just murder the innocent young, old, and the defenseless. It murders innocence itself. It turns virtue into weakness, decency into vulnerability.

If we and the world do not take a stand against terror and continue to ignore it, it will affect human future so that no tears, no regrets could ever remove.

Israel is not fighting only for itself. It is for the sake of all those who say no to terror. No to the desecration of life. No to killing in the name of G-d, whether they live in Bali, Beslan, Madrid or Mumbai.

Al-mighty G-d. Hear the cries of Your people Israel, Heed their tears, and Hear our prayer on their behalf. Grant peace to all Your children, Jew, Christian and Muslim alike. Help us live together, respect one another. Help us cherish life. Help us use the powers You gave us, to heal, to mend, to build. We ask of You, Who makes peace on high, Help us make peace down here on earth.