CAIRO - Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip is a gift to extremists throughout the Arab world and even in Israel, former UN secretary general Egypt's Boutros Boutros Ghali said on Monday.
The war in Gaza "is a present the Israelis gave to the fundamentalists... It will reinforce extremists, fundamentalists, all over Arab countries and even inside Israel," elder statesman Boutros Ghali told journalists in Cairo.
"It will weaken all moderates, all those who are in favour of a dialogue," said Boutros Ghali, who headed the UN from 1992 to 1997. "It will be very difficult to begin a new dialogue without being treated as a traitor."
More than 800 Palestinians have been killed during the 16-day-old operation in Gaza, where more than half of the population is under 15, and thousands more wounded.
"Because of what's happening now, they will be the kamikazes of tomorrow, the extremists of tomorrow," said Boutros Ghali, a Coptic Christian.
Boutros Ghali said that extremism will also gain political ground, pointing to Israel's failed war against Lebanon's Hezbollah in 2006 which is now "becoming one of the most important political parties in Beirut."
Boutros Ghali, who as state minister for foreign affairs was involved in negotiating Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, said it will now be "10 times more difficult to obtain a peace treaty, like we did in 1979."
Just as there are "extremists among the Palestinians who don't believe in the peace process, you have exactly the same extremists in Israel who are not in favour of peace and believe that sooner or later they will have a territorial expansion in the West Bank.
"This was always existing but because of the weakness of the moderates provoked by what's happening in Gaza, the extremists will be in a stronger position, the extremists in Israel, the extremists in Arab countries.
"You have an important part of the Israeli population who are against the peace process and believe that sooner or later they will have a territorial expansion.
"On the other side you have fundamentalists who believe you cannot have a peace process and sooner or later Israel will disappear like the Latin states in the Middle East during the Crusades.
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