By Anees Barghouthy

JERUSALEM

The threat of terror facing some Arab states offers Israel an opportunity to gain new allies in the region, former Israeli president Shimon Peres said on Monday.

Speaking at the 4th annual International Cybersecurity Conference at Tel Aviv, Peres said that terrorism is currently constituting a more dangerous threat to the Arab countries than Israel, Israeli daily The Jerusalem Post reported.

Peres went on to say that reaching peace in the Middle East is a goal that is nearer than people think.

Referring to the Western alliance that is in the pipeline to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militant group, Peres said that it would not able to kill every terrorist. Therefore it must dry out their source of funding, he said.

The ISIL had overrun large territories in both Iraq and Syria. Since early last month, the U.S. has carried dozens of airstrikes across Iraq against sites said to be held by the militant group.

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Iraqi government troops – backed by U.S. air support – are said to have recently made slow but steady progress in areas under the group's control.

Israel has not officially joined the international coalition being formed by the United States against ISIL in Iraq.  

Some western sources had been quoted by Israel Radio as saying that Israel had provided the United States with intelligence information about ISIL.

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