When the pictures pour in from the Middle East of children cut down by bullets and soldiers lynched by enraged mobs, we ask ourselves "Why? Why are these people dying? How should I react to this?"

Pained by earlier scenes of violence, I started asking myself those questions and set about trying to answer them. To a son of Chinese immigrants raised in suburban Boston, Israel was some country in the Middle East with a terrorism problem, Palestine something found only on outdated maps.

It's amazing what you learn if you complement your news diet of CNN and The New York Times with sources from other parts of the world--which is exactly what I began to do, routinely consulting Israeli, Palestinian and European media.

After my own share of reading and soul-searching, I now believe that although neither side is fully innocent or blameworthy, it is the Israeli government which bears the greater share of responsibility for the "Palestinian problem." This is an opinion I came to, not one that I was raised with.

Substantiating this opinion requires pointing out the grossly unequal realities that are frequently obscured in the American media.

First, there is the sheer imbalance of power. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright speaks of the Palestinians "laying siege" to Israel, but it is Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships that are surrounding and firing on communities in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, not the other way around.

Then there is the imbalance of terror. Israelis live under the fear of potential terrorist attack, and that is awful. But fear of being killed and actually being killed by an occupying army are two different things, and it is not a coincidence that nearly all of the recent casualties are Palestinian.

And then there are the arguments in support of current Israeli government actions.