This may seem strange now, when the world is frothing and flinging every vile name at Jews and Israel; accusing us of barbarous crimes and terminology that the cultured Europeans introduced sixty years ago against the Jewish people. Holocaust. Concentration Camps. Mass Murder. Nazis. They try to cleanse their guilt by hurling those terms at the survivors of their brutality.

I recall the old priest walking out of the Bethlehem Church holding up a sheet painted: "Help Us." How our soldiers put their arms around him. The old priest said with tears in his eyes: "Thank you. They stole everything. Thank you for helping me."

I thought of the fifty children held hostage in the Church and about the silence of the Pope, too busy dealing with his own internal problems to worry about condemning terrorists who invade Christianity's holiest shrine to hold priests and children hostage. And about the Israeli soldier critically wounded by a terrorist hiding in the church behind those children who have no food and little water. A soldier who refused to tear gas the place, or shoot back.

I thought about Israeli soldiers who insisted on going from booby-trapped house to booby trapped house in Jenin, home to suicide bombers and bomb belt factories. They wouldn't bomb those houses, so we lost 23 precious sons.

I thought about the Muslims in Sudan who kidnap Christian little girls (New York Times, April 23, 2002) and enslave them, beating and selling them as wives to old men. I thought about Muslims in Saudi Arabia raising billions for suicide bombers on murder sprees. I thought about the IDF spokesman describing the army's efforts to get food and medicine to the refugee camps, that the Palestinian Authority makes no effort to distribute it because they are engaged in planning terror attacks from Arafat's compound.

Jews don't burn mosques or churches. We don't target children or old women. Despite all that was done to us, and all the hatred we receive, we continue to be compassionate, to value justice and human life. We continue to teach our children to value life, and love other people, and strive towards peace. Our children don't throw stones at Arabs. We don't burn flags of other countries. We judge each man on his merits, not his nationality or religion. Despite the fact that an Arab tried to kill me and my husband and children a few weeks ago, I don't hate Arabs. Just terrorists and their supporters.

Other peoples seem better off, stronger, more numerous. They live in vast lands with treasures of oil, iron and gold, and lush forests and abundant rainfalls and beautiful rivers. But I have never been prouder of the words in our prayer book: "Thank you God, for not making us as the other nations of the world." They don't have a clue how to cherish what they've been given, and how to share it with their own people and with others.

We, in our little, tiny, desert land, care deeply about the hungry and poor. We don't waste water, and eat our fruits with a blessing. We glory in the beauty of our tiny Lake Kinneret, and walk along our Mediterranean shore with joyful hearts as we watch the sun set, our minds empty of hatred and plans for killing. Our minds on our family's well-being and the future, a better future for all mankind when they will recognize that all the Earth belongs to G-d, and no one has right to kill others because they want something they don't have.

Yes, Mr. Kofi Anan. The whole world can be wrong. Whether they are ignorant tribesmen spewing hate in tents, or sophisticated newsmen spewing prejudice through cable networks and space satellites.

Those who join us and bless us now, at this time, will be blessed. Those who join our enemies, now, at this time, will be cursed. I bet my life on it.

Thank you G-d, for making me a Jew, and teaching me Your Laws and Your Ways, at this time, and in this place, when so many around the world have lost their moral bearings and have sunk so low. Thank you for keeping Your promise to Abraham, for bringing me, his descendant, back here thousands of years later. I will try to be worthy of being a Jew, to be worthy of the good You've showered on me and the Jewish people by giving us back our homeland, and helping us to defeat our enemies, enemies of all good people everywhere.