"Already before the 20th century Jewish history was recognised as unique: by Pascal, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Tolstoy. Little could they have known that some of the most dramatic of all chapters of Jewish history were yet to be written: the Shoah, the attempt once and for all to silence the Jewish voice and eliminate the Jewish presence. Rachmanah litzlan, from the face of the earth.

Yom Hazikaron, when we remember those who fell in Israel's defence as they discovered that the Jewish people still has to fight for the right to be, to exist, to have one place on earth where we can defend ourselves.

Yet out of the very depths of those very tragedies came two of the greatest moments in 2000 years of history, Yom Ha'atzmaut - the restoration of Jewish sovereignty after 1900 years, and Yom Yerushalayim, the return to the ancient and holy city, Jerusalem, home of the Jewish heart, focus of all our prayers, embodiment of all our hopes.

Yet Israel is again under attack, after four years of a savage, ceaseless, brutal terror.

At the very moment that terror is being contained, Israel is facing a new attack - a systematic campaign of delegitimization and demonisation among the media, non-governmental organisations, university teachers, and perhaps even among the churches - as if the cause of peace, or justice, or reconciliation, or coexistence were served by listening to only one voice in the conversation, only one side, the other side, in the conflict.
No one summed up the irony of our present situation better than the Israeli writer Amos Oz. "in the 1930s our enemies said: Jews to Palestine. Now they say: Jews out of Palestine. They don't want us to be here. They don't want us to be there. They don't want us to be."

Why?
Why, after 57 years and more of seeking peace, is Israel still seen as the aggressor?
Why, after ten years of negotiation, in which the Palestinians were offered their own state in all of Gaza, 97% of the West Bank, with a capital in East Jerusalem, is Israel still seen as the sole obstacle to peace?

Why, in a world in which there are 57 Islamic states and something like 100 Christian ones, is the desire of the Jewish people to have just one state of its own seen as - God forbid - racist or exclusionary?

Why, when Israel occupies a quarter of one percent of the land mass of the Arab world, is it deemed to be Goliath against David?
Why, alone among the almost 200 nations that comprise the United Nations, is Israel the only one whose very right to be is still called into question?

Why is the Israel- Palestinian conflict seen by one European public after another as the greatest threat to world peace, when anyone with the most rudimentary understanding of the contemporary world knows full well that were - God forbid a million times -Israel to cease to be, not one of those problems of the world would be changed by a millimetre.

There would still be conflict in Kashmir, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo, Indonesia, the Philippines, China, Sudan, Algeria, and Zimbabwe. There would still be global warming, poverty, illiteracy, disease. Most people of the world would still be deprived of the most basic freedoms and human rights. All that would have happened is that the bravest experiment of modern times - the introduction of freedom and democracy into a corner of the Middle East - would have failed, and with it the hopes of many peoples, not just our own.

Why is Israel blamed for almost every problem affecting the 21st century? Why is Israel held up as the explanation for the underachievement, inequality, and lack of human rights in other countries? This afternoon I attended the service of remembrance for the victims of the Tsunami. with its devastating loss of life throughout the Indian Ocean. The Tsunami. A tidal wave. I thought, here was a disaster for which Israel could not be blamed. I was wrong. Within days a religious teacher, in another part of the world, let it be known that the Tsunami was caused by Israel's programme of nuclear testing. When it comes to hate, the capacity for self-delusion knows no bounds.

Why, when the whole history of the 20th century tells us what happens when hate is unchecked, when lies are told in the media as truth - as they were in the case of Jenin -when universities discriminate against this or that one, we know what happens at the end of that path that begins that way. Why do these things still happen?

Do we still - after 60 years of Holocaust education, 60 years of anti-racist legislation, 60 years of inter-faith activity - have to defend the right of the Jewish people to be?

All too often, in defence of Israel against defamation, we, the Jewish people have had to stand alone. No people should be left to face hate alone. As Martin Luther King said, "In the end we will remember, not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends."