While participants and leaders of Hamline University's conference with Palestinian, Israeli and Lebanese teachers and students appreciate the Star Tribune coverage of our work, we are deeply disturbed by your sensational headline (July 25).

Yes, one of the Middle East students said she might write an article about the conference after she gets home and call it "11 days with the enemy." Nonetheless, lifting this quote from a 14 year old out of its context is highly misleading and must be corrected.

The conference at Hamline, with more than 40 Middle East visitors, is not about being enemies. Certainly governments sometimes regard some countries as enemies, but our conference is among teachers and students of good will who do not consider themselves to be enemies. They are committed to dialogue, deliberation, respect and constructive solutions to longstanding tensions.

The irony of the headline is glaring: While calling attention to something we rarely hear about -- Arabs and Israelis working together for a better future for all -- the headline reinforces longstanding stereotypes, exactly what the conference is trying to undo.

The conference is part of a larger ongoing effort to strengthen civil society in each of these Middle East communities. Such grass-roots efforts are an essential element in building social stability, political moderation and the possibility for constructive coexistence in the region.

We understand that our work may be surprising to your readers, given usual coverage of the Middle East. But we would like readers to know that our work is not about perpetuating old images of the Middle East but about creating new, surprising and collaborative ways of working together for the common good.

PROFS. DUANE CADY AND Ken Fox, St. Paul,

for the Hamline University Middle East Civic Education Project