I find the news reports of the violence between Israel and Lebanon to be very disturbing. I understand that Israel has a right to defend itself, but the response to the kidnapping of their soldiers has been totally disproportionate, and of course their massive response has brought a heavy response from Hezbollah, and so the escalation continues. There needs to be restraint on both sides, and some reaching out to find reconciliation, or at least an agreement to live peacefully as enemies.

I remember cheering for Israel during the six days war, they were the underdog fighting for their very existence, but today I can see much more clearly the Palestinian's side and how they have been misused by Israel. The separation barrier has caused much suffering for the Palestinians, destroying their homes, separating them from their farmlands or olive groves or other opportunities for employment on the other side of the wall. How can we have cheered for the coming down of the wall between east and west Berlin and not see that this is the same issue.

A wall across the southern boarder of our country will not deal with our problems either. Robert Frost said "Something there is that doesn't like a wall, that sends the frozen ground swell under, scattering boulders in the sun."

I thought that the General Assembly peacemaking and international issues committee did a very good job in improving the resolution about the middle east that was passed by the 2004 Assembly, saying that we should use our investments and the leverage they give us with companies who provide materials to those on both sides of the conflict to work for peace, not to provide war materials. I tried to say this at the interfaith dinner last week to a Muslim who was very much a pro-Palestinian sympathizer, but all he could say was that we were cowards for backing off of our previously more one sided criticism for Israel. He wouldn't concede that there were two sides to the situation, all he could see was that the Palestinians were being done an injustice, and that justified anything they did against Israel.

As long as neither side is willing to consider the other's point of view the conflict will continue to escalate.