As former METS travelers, we are especially saddened and troubled by the current situation in the Middle East. We do not have the luxury, enjoyed by so many of our American friends who have never traveled in that part of the world, of dividing the adversaries into the good guys and the bad guys. We now have friends on all sides: Lebanese, Syrians, Jordanians, Egyptians,
Israelis and Palestinians. And we know that most of them are neither good guys nor bad guys, but ordinary people like us, good and bad, caught up in a conflict over which they have no control.

I wish that I could offer some wise insights, and perhaps some predictions, as to how this most recent phase of the Middle East conflict will play out. But I do not. Indeed, things are changing so fast that anything I write now will be long out of date by the time you receive and read this newsletter. Let us pray that the situation will have improved by then and that our friends who are caught up in the conflict will have survived.