Many of us start with prayer in these gloomy times, when rockets continue to fly and hostages are still held captive. I do too. As a devout Catholic, I pray every day for the safety of Israeli soldiers and civilians, for the innocent Lebanese and Gazans caught in the crossfire, for the Iranian people who suffer under a regime that has destroyed the region, and for peace in the Holy Land. However, prayer is insufficient on its own. True peace is a hard-won reality that requires defenders prepared to stand in the breach; it is neither a catchphrase nor a hashtag.

The uncomfortable truth is this: to have peace, and even to have the right to pray for it and advocate for it openly, you must first be able to defend that very right, often with force. Evil does not negotiate with the unarmed. It does not respect cease-fires signed only by the decent. History teaches us that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and sometimes the price of peace is decisive military action. Those who would deny Jews the right to live in their ancestral homeland, or Christians the right to worship without fear, or anyone the right to speak truth, understand only........

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