Americans in every aspect of Mideast conflict: from settlers to educators, they seek to influence politics. (Cover Story).

A news flash from the war in the Mideast arrives via e-mail. In Bethlehem where Palestinian militants have taken refuge in The Church of the Nativity and are surrounded by Israeli forces, the Christian Brothers at Bethlehem University report that every building on campus has been damaged by Israeli shelling and gunfire. Given the heavy bombardment, the brothers feel they've been fortunate that none of the staff has been injured. They report four deaths in the families of staff, however: a son, a sister, an uncle and a nephew.

In Ramallah, the Palestinian headquarters on the West Bank, the Red Crescent reports that conditions are worse than in any time in 30 years. Ambulances can't get through the streets to take the wounded to hospitals. Hospitals are running out of bandages and other supplies. The morgues are full, but Israeli soldiers won't allow any burials. Meanwhile the wave of Palestinian suicide bombings continues.

Two weeks earlier in Jerusalem, a Palestinian student had pessimistically predicted that the situation, bad then, would get worse. "The blood will be up to here," he said, motioning with his hand. His prediction is coming true.

An update arrives from Bethlehem University. Israeli soldiers have scaled the gates and stormed the campus. American-made F-16s are flying bombing runs overhead, and Israeli troops have fired at the university four wire-guided missiles "paid for with your tax dollars," writes one of the brothers.

For many Americans, the violence that has erupted with such fury between Israelis and Palestinians may seem a remote conflict with little consequence for their lives. But it is clear from interviews in Israel and the occupied territories that Americans are intimately involved in almost every aspect of the struggle here.

In Israel, Americans are found on both sides of the conflict and on every point of the political perspective. The number of American Jews who immigrate to Israel is small, but they are surprisingly visible on the political scene. On the right, a large number of American Jews are among the settlers putting down stakes in the occupied territories and determined to make those territories Israel's own. On the left, American Israelis figure prominently in the resurgent Israeli peace movement and in human rights organizations that spotlight Israeli abuses.

Americans of every religious persuasion can be found in Israel and the occupied territories working as peacemakers, relief workers, advisors and educators.

"Many of the Americans who come here come here for ideological reasons. You're not fleeing persecution. You've come here because you believe in something," said Michael Tarazi, a Harvard University graduate who now works as a legal and communications adviser to the Palestinian Authority.

Their stories are different, but added together they reveal some of the dimensions of the conflict in the Mideast.

Started in 1984, the Alternative Education Center in Jerusalem is one of a dwindling number of Israeli-Palestinian ventures, a stopping-off point for journalists trying to get the other side of the news from that presented in the mainstream Israeli media.

On a Sunday afternoon, media officer Connie Hackbarth looked besieged and tired. The night before, a suicide bomber had detonated himself at a cafe around…