Dear Prime Minister,

May I offer my condolences for the terrible burden of guilt you must be feeling presently. It must be crushing to know that the 54 civilians killed during the massacre at Qana, would still be alive if only you had only picked up the phone to the Israeli Prime Minister last week and forthrightly told him to stop attacking civilian targets. Even worse, you must feel directly culpable as it is possible that the children who were blown apart, were killed by one of the plane load of munitions you permitted to transit through the UK bound for the Israeli Air Force last week.

It is a truly terrible burden to bear and many lesser men would have crumbled or at least started to acknowledge of the massive body of dissenting public opinion by now. Not you though, you are an “Iron Lady” in every sense of the word and I have never been prouder of you or my country as I am now in this dark hour.

It was bad enough that since early last week, hundreds of Lebanese children have been killed or horribly injured whilst you refused to call on the Israeli’s to stop the killing them. But now the situation has descended into new depths of tragedy and despair as the press and even your own cabinet are starting to question your symbiotic implementation of President Bush’s masterful Middle East peace plan. Your PR consultants have been overwhelmed and outgunned by the surging tide of negative press that your dogged refusal to hint at any form of condemnation of the Israelis mass killing of civilians, has generated.

It is one thing to have the blood of over a hundred children on your hands, but quite another to be mildly mocked in the press. You must put a stop to it urgently and I therefore commend your far sighted effort to pass a UN resolution calling for a cease fire and installing an international peace keeping force. Nothing can do more to bolster your damaged credibility than insisting that the attacks on civilians cannot stop with a “lasting and permanent peace”. By making Peace in the Middle East a precondition for George Bush to restrain the Israelis, you have almost guaranteed that the conflict will continue indefinitely.

Yours faithfully

AJ Bladderwait.