By Stan Goodenough
Dec 28, 2007
Thursday's assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto left the impression that Pakistan was becoming like Lebanon, where politicians opposed to the system were simply blown up and killed.
So said Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, in an interview on Fox News Friday afternoon.
Gillerman warned that the killing and the turmoil it was threatening to tip Pakistan into posed an extremely grave danger for the Middle East and the world.
With 160 million people sitting on a very dangerous nuclear arsenal which could "very easily fall into the hands of extremists," Gillerman said, Pakistan could quickly become "one of the most dangerous nations in the world."
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decried Bhutto's assassination, saying she could have "served as a bridgehead to relations with that part of the Muslim world with whom our ties are naturally limited."
Olmert, Gillerman and Israeli President Shimon Peres all said Bhutto had, in conversations with each of them, expressed an interest in working towards the normalization of relations with Israel if and when she was returned to the post of Pakistan's prime minister.
"I had the chance to meet her on several occasions, in which she expressed interest in Israel and said that she hoped to visit upon returning to power," Peres said, according to The Jerusalem Post.
"Benazir was a charismatic leader and a fighter for peace in her country and across the world."