Dr Abdul Bary Malik JP is a Justice of the Peace, President of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association in and founder and chief Executive of Asian Disability Awareness Action in Bradford.

I am grateful to Jim Newsham (In My View, August 4) for a very fair and thought-provoking article. We all have witnessed the atrocious events that unfolded in the Middle East during the past few weeks. It seems that the humanity has chosen to stoop at the lowest level.

The kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers has led to the massive destruction of infrastructure worth billions of dollars and the loss of priceless innocent lives in Lebanon. Heart-wrenching pictures of beautiful and innocent children, elderly and frail persons and patients in hospitals being killed by missiles are so painful that any person, who has the decency and respect for humanity cannot keep quite.

This crisis could have been resolved easily through diplomatic negotiations but some sly politicians decided to turn it into a mass murder and slaughter of unarmed innocent civilians who have nothing to do with this dispute.

I don't want to take any sides in this dispute as far as the politics is concerned, but I am deeply concerned about the unnecessary sufferings and brutal killings of innocent civilians on both sides, and I hereby want to present some facts to the readers.

Israel has violated more then 65 UN resolutions and America has vetoed more then 30 UN resolutions on Israel between 1972 and 1990. Israel is known to have more than 400 nuclear warheads. For years, Israel has continuously and blatantly violated all international laws by ignoring the UN, by killing innocent lives, attacking funerals, by deliberately targeting and attacking the Red Cross and other aid agency vehicles, UN posts and other international organisations bases, by illegally detaining and besieging civilians and even elected representatives of Palestinian people and by continuously invading foreign lands.

The Israeli policy of denying Palestinian people their basic rights, use of unnecessary and excessive force and continued illegal occupation are the stumbling blocks to world peace. The USA and UK were quick to attack Iraq for similar "crimes" but when it came to Israel they closed their eyes and became a party in the crime. Israel's aggressive and violent campaign with American and British support has pushed many people in the world towards extremism and extremist organisations such as al-Qaida.

My fear is that the present campaign of indiscriminate killing of innocent people will further strengthen organisations like al-Qaida. As the King of Jordan, who is a close ally of the West, said recently: "If you try to get rid of Hezbollah by force you will never succeed because ten more Hezbollahs will come into being. Swords can win territories but not hearts, force can bend heads, but not minds."

Meanwhile, Muslims around the world are very upset, angry and unhappy about the current situation in the Middle East. They feel that they are not been treated with justice. American and British foreign policies have double standards when it comes to Muslims. Muslim rulers in the Middle East are not speaking out because they are more interested in their power, but if the public revolt it will be extremely difficult to control it. If we don't come to some sensible and just conclusion than I am afraid we will see a rise in terror attacks around the world.