The Middle East in the future would be quite different from the one advocated by U.S. Secretary of State Gondoleezza Rice, who described the Israel-Hezbollah fighting as "the birth pangs" of a new Mideast.

An editorial titled "Mideast powder keg" carried by the English daily The Egyptian Gazette on Thursday said that there were reasons to believe that the current calm in Lebanon was fragile and short-lived, echoing widespread pessimism among Arabs concerning the aftermaths of the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire.

The stakes were high that Israel would embark on a new adventure in Lebanon and elsewhere in a bid to shore up its military image dented by its "failure" to subdue Hezbollah, said the editorial.

In addition, the Arab press accused the United States of "taking sides with Israel" in the Lebanon crisis, which they said might lead to a hike of the anti-America sentiment in the region that could fuel extremism.

Ahmed Abul Kheir, former Egyptian assistant foreign minister, said that he was expecting a strong wave of Islamist movements which would undermine regional stability.

Rami Khouri, executive editor of Lebanon's Daily Star, also wrote in a commentary published Wednesday by the Cairo-based newspaper that the growing strength and assertiveness of the Islamist movements was a sign that the majority of Arabs were not content with remaining docile and dejected in the state of subjugation and defeat that had defined them for decades.

Khouri predicted that the Middle East region might witness more violence following the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

"What we have just seen in Lebanon and Israel may have been a terrible foretaste of larger furies to come," Khouri wrote.

"The brutality of the mutual attacks against urban civilian centers during the Lebanon war should be seen as a harbinger of what the region will witness in the years ahead," Khouri wrote.

He also expected rising tensions and greater competition between governments and non-state actors in the Arab world, saying that groups in the region might seek to emulate Hezbollah's organizational and political prowess.

Syria and Iran, along with groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, would continue actively challenging the pro-Western states in the region and see themselves fighting against Israel and the U.S. hegemony in the region, he added.

Mohamad al-Sayid Idrees, a commentator for the popular daily Al-Khaleej of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), shared the same view with Khouri.

Despite the ceasefire in Lebanon thanks to the UN Security Council resolution, a new stage of violence has just begun and such violence will be much fiercer and severer, Idrees said in a commentary.

Israel launched a massive assault against Hezbollah after the Lebanese Shiite group seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others during cross-border raids on July 12.

A ceasefire went into effect between the two sides on Monday after the Lebanese and Israeli governments approved the UN Security Council resolution, which demands an immediate, full cessation of hostilities and authorizes an expansion of the existing UN force in Lebanon to help Lebanese troops take control of south Lebanon while Israel withdraws in parallel.

Over 1,000 Lebanese and 157 Israelis have been killed in the nearly-five-week-old conflict.