Last week brought an amazing discovery in an Irish bog: an ancient Book of Psalms that had been lost about a millennium ago. The psalter was opened to Psalm 83, which – and this is startling – is a prayer asking God to deliver Israel from the Arab peoples of the north who, according to the Psalmist, “say, ‘Come, let us wipe out their nation; let Israel’s name be mentioned no more!”‘

A Psalm written 3,000 years ago is as fresh as today’s news. The nation of Israel is fighting a war of survival against a genocidal Islamist movement and its confederates. On Saturday, Hezbollah chief Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, noting that a top Israeli politician called the conflict “a life-or-death war for Israel,” added triumphantly: “He is right because he knows that, if the resistance will come out triumphant this time, the Zionist entity will not have a future. When the (Israeli) nation will begin to lose faith in its army, it will mark the beginning of the end for this entity.”

If the Israelis lose this war against Hezbollah – and anything short of Hezbollah’s virtual annihilation will be taken as a loss by the Arab world – the existence of the Jewish state will be in question. Since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Israel has depended on its reputation of invincibility to deter those who would destroy it. Sheik Nasrallah is right: If a cease-fire allows Hezbollah to survive, the terrorists’ victory will shatter Israeli confidence and electrify Arabs.

Not only would the Islamist cutthroats redouble their attacks on Israel, there also is a serious risk that moderate Arab governments could fall under Islamist popular pressure. Because the Arab street cares more about destroying Israel than building a decent future for itself, radical Islam would become the wave of the future. Would that make the West safer or the Mideast more stable – especially because a Hezbollah triumph redounds to the benefit of the nuclear-ambitious theocrats in Tehran?

The world cannot afford a cease-fire now. The deaths of Lebanese civilians are horrible. But that is war – especially when Hezbollah, the aggressor, deliberately hides its missiles and munitions in civilian areas and – as photos published in Australia over the weekend demonstrate – disguises its fighters as civilians. The Israelis gain nothing by killing civilians, which is why they’ve tried hard not to (note well that fleeing Lebanese Christians told The New York Times last week that Hezbollah is to blame for their misery).

Hezbollah, by contrast, deliberately targets Israeli civilians. Yet the world’s outrage is reserved for Israel, presumably on the theory that Jews are to be sympathized with as long as they aren’t defending themselves.

After the Holocaust, the West said “never again,” but Israel’s founders had learned the cost of trusting in the West’s goodwill. The Jews are alone in the world and have no one to rely on but themselves – and the United States of America. As a Christian well aware of Israel’s flaws, but even more grateful for her existence, I pray that my country never breaks faith with the Jewish people and their state.

If radical Islam prevails in this war, a much greater and bloodier war is coming – and the Israelis will not be the only targets. The Psalmist’s petition to the Almighty concerning Israel’s enemies – “Let them be dismayed and shamed forever; let them perish in disgrace” – should be our own because, like it or not, Israel’s unsought war on Islamist savagery is ours, too.