“We are Jews. We don’t have to save the Palestinian heritage,” says Itzik Shweky of the Society for Preservation of Israel Heritage Sites. But an American Jew from Brooklyn says the abandoned Palestinian village of Lifta is important for Jews as well as Arabs.

A law professor and author asks what force should be used for in a just world and observes that deciding to intervene militarily to protect people who are being slaughtered by their own government is "an enormous break with America’s practice."

The much-praised French film "Of Gods and Men" dramatizes the essence of universal Christian love, according to the author of the book on which the movie is based.

"If Libya is not clearly distinguished by extraordinary violence, then the president’s claim that protecting civilians is the primary purpose of intervening in Libya is very weak indeed."

Emory University philosophy professor Nicholas Fotion weighs the arguments for and against intervention in Libya.

No one should think intervention in Libya will be easy or simple, writes religious studies professor Charles Mathewes. "Obama’s message to the nation was a reminder that he surely doesn't."

"We don’t have an obligation to be everywhere for the very simple reason that we don’t have the capacity to be everywhere," says William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Along with a responsibility to protect, international coalition military forces intervening in Libya also have a responsibility to respect.

The UN has demanded a cease-fire and authorized military action. What moral considerations should underlie international intervention?

"Whether you act or whether you don't act, the stakes are really quite high, and that's what makes it so daunting from a moral perspective."