looking for the other side

I read the news about the Middle East.  It's hard sometimes, when the death toll numbers physically make me ache and I'm left wondering if there IS a solution.  This is one of those times.  I'm not meaning to be political--I don't like politics for the most part, because I really think characterizing a situation as "us vs. them" is almost always unhelpful and wrong--but I can't see why our government takes the stand it does in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  I've asked so many people if they understand it, and the most common explanation I've heard is one of pragmatism and strategical maneuvering in the region.  That, to me, seems unacceptable.  I wish foreign policy could actually be based on the concepts we pretend to stand for--freedom, equality, preservation from harm, and a legitimate quest for peace.
When 300 Palestinians die next to 2 Israelis, I wish I could see the other side.  I honestly wish someone could make that seem justified, because I don't like thinking of people as cruel and inhumane, motivated by patriotism to the point of devaluing other lives.  I want to help by being in the middle, able to communicate with both sides, but I really just don't get it.  The Palestinians are not complete victims--the shellings prove that--but the death toll is just too one-sided for me to see the situation as even.