Who Is Our Biggest Foreign Intelligence Threat?

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who is our biggest foreign intelligence threat?
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By palladin9479 2015-03-30 09:00:25
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Obama seems to be losing long time allies. The U.S. used to be good at keeping the peace between Israel and Egypt. But not anymore. Go figure.

Because people only respect power and the US has been acting so foolish that nobody thinks it will do anything in it's own self interest.

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This right here is very close to the truth.

It is the truth, nothing you said disagrees with anything I said. I personally feel we shouldn't of gone in the second time, the past decision to not remove him was done for a reason, that area needs a strong brutal central figure to keep tribal warlords in check. Political leadership in the USA seems to of forgotten old hard learned lessons. We invaded because political elite in the USA figured it would be better sooner rather then later and that it would be an easy victory with a quick cleanup. Talking about being arrogant.
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By fonewear 2015-03-30 09:01:37
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Smug Obama approves !

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By Ciri Zireael 2015-03-30 09:06:16
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That's more like moonstar Obama.

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By Leviathan.Chaosx 2015-03-30 09:23:46
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A third of Republicans believe President Barack Obama poses an imminent threat to the United States, outranking concerns about Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

A Reuters/Ipsos online poll this month asked 2,809 Americans to rate how much of a threat a list of countries, organizations and individuals posed to the United States on a scale of 1 to 5, with one being no threat and 5 being an imminent threat.

The poll showed 34 percent of Republicans ranked Obama as an imminent threat, ahead of Putin (25 percent), who has been accused of aggression in the Ukraine, and Assad (23 percent). Western governments have alleged that Assad used chlorine gas and barrel bombs on his own citizens.

Given the level of polarization in American politics the results are not that surprising, said Barry Glassner, a sociologist and author of "The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are afraid of the wrong things."

"There tends to be a lot of demonizing of the person who is in the office," Glassner said, adding that "fear mongering" by the Republican and Democratic parties would be a mainstay of the U.S. 2016 presidential campaign.

"The TV media here, and American politics, very much trade on fears," he said.

The Ipsos survey, done between March 16 and March 24, included 1,083 Democrats and 1,059 Republicans.

Twenty-seven percent of Republicans saw the Democratic Party as an imminent threat to the United States, and 22 percent of Democrats deemed Republicans to be an imminent threat.

People who were polled were most concerned about threats related to potential terror attacks. Islamic State militants were rated an imminent threat by 58 percent of respondents, and al Qaeda by 43 percent. North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un was viewed as a threat by 34 percent, and Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by 27 percent.

Cyber attacks were viewed as an imminent threat by 39 percent, and drug trafficking was seen as an imminent threat by a third of the respondents.

Democrats were more concerned about climate change than Republicans, with 33 percent of Democrats rating global warming an imminent threat. Among Republicans, 27 percent said climate change was not a threat at all.

The data was weighted to reflect the U.S. population and has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points for all adults (3.4 points for Democrats and 3.4 points for Republicans.)
Republicans see Obama as more imminent threat than Putin: Reuters/Ipsos poll
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By Asura.Kingnobody 2015-03-30 09:51:34
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Fenrir.Candlejack said: »
Asura.Kingnobody said: »
Fenrir.Candlejack said: »
THANKS, OBAMA!!
ftfy
Wait, you mean to tell me our country went to war in Iraq over suspicions Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons which didn't exist, goaded on by Benny Netenyahu, on OBAMA'S watch? A war with Iraq that was underfunded and under-equipped from the word "go", given by none other than... OBAMA?
Funny. I thought I coulda swore it was Bush II's doing.
And how is international relationships going on with Obama at the helm?

Because you are pretty much blaming all of Obama's failings in leadership as Bush's fault.

I guess responsibility is a concept foreign to you. Pun intended.
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By fonewear 2015-03-30 10:09:48
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I stopped reading when it said Bush II...if I recall correctly Hillary voted for that war also so should we just glaze over that fact ?
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By fonewear 2015-03-30 10:13:56
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Nothing like bringing up George W Bush whenever Obama is *** up the country though !

I wish I had a scapegoat in real life I could blame all all the stuff I mess up.
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By Lakshmi.Sparthosx 2015-03-30 11:14:49
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fonewear said: »
Nothing like bringing up George W Bush whenever Obama is *** up the country though !

I wish I had a scapegoat in real life I could blame all all the stuff I mess up.

History follows sequence. The act of invading Iraq has shaped the current foreign policy situation involving ISIS and trillions up in smoke occupying and trying to stabilize that country. No Iraq invasion presumably meant no AQ in Iraq who'd later go on to become IS and more attention paid to our Afghanistan campaign.

So yeah, it's Bush's fault there. Iraq became a boondoggle with a Shia led government that fell into time tested means of oppressing the minority which directly fed into an insurgencies hand. Having a ***tier democracy in a part of the world where said government isn't organic tends to do that.

As for Obama. You could say his dealing with Putin has further iced our relations with Russia but Putin's decision on Crimea and Ukraine are in the best interests of his nation and run counter to American 'world police' isms. Putin felt encroached upon and wants his nation to be once again seen as competitive with the US so conflict was unavoidable here. He's playing a nationalistic game and that means America is a rival.

On Syria we could have acted directly on Assad post 'red line' but who in America wanted to put boots on the ground sans the hawks? Everyone yells DO SOMETHING but no one wants to put skin in the game.

We've acted through proxies (those moderates!) and the proxies blew up in our faces, again. Is America prepared to take Assad out ourselves and shore up that nation too?
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By Lakshmi.Sparthosx 2015-03-30 11:19:55
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How you decide to approach Iran is wholly dependent on if you think Iran is a rational player on the world stage. Obama thinks as much, Bibi and the Republicans not so much.

Do we continue to antagonize Iran eventually pushing them up against the wall, the fuel for conflict, or do we attempt to negotiate some type of deal? It's pragmatism vs. idealism here. Irans not a friendly state but the US has dealt with far worse monsters in the past. You know, like Saddam-***-Hussain. So again, what's the argument here? Obama's cutting a deal with 'terrorists'? Well, every president since WWII has done that.

Israel is totally out on any negotiations with Iran but should we be quick to side with Israel rather than act in our own interest which involves mainly to keep the ME from going to ***? I hesitantly say that considering our actions but the ideal is that.

Israel isn't doing ***on that front. Israel isn't part of the United States. Israel is an ally. You don't always take your ally's pleas at face value.
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By Bahamut.Lyncath 2015-03-30 11:39:46
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To be brutally honest the biggest foreign threat to America isn't even a foreign threat itself. It's what a perceived or imagined foreign threat will do to the political process (radicalization). We're seeing the beginnings of such a thing here in the UK and across Europe where extreme far-right parties are on the march again in response to the alleged rise of domestic Islamic extremism.

palladin9479 said: »
I personally feel we shouldn't of gone in the second time, the past decision to not remove him was done for a reason, that area needs a strong brutal central figure to keep tribal warlords in check. Political leadership in the USA seems to of forgotten old hard learned lessons. We invaded because political elite in the USA figured it would be better sooner rather then later and that it would be an easy victory with a quick cleanup. Talking about being arrogant.
As a History Major I absolutely agree with this. The decision to invade Iraq and instigate regime change will easily go down in the history books of the next century as the absolute biggest foreign policy disaster of the 21st Century. Invading a nation like Iraq without taking into account the Sunni and Shia divide was absolutely idiotic. Removing Saddam Hussein from power was like pulling the plug out of a bathtub. Saddam was a tyrant, make no mistake about it, but he was indeed a *** strong lynchpin that helped the stability of the region. Now with him gone and the western proxy-government floundering the circles are getting smaller and smaller, faster and faster - and now runs the risk of taking the entire region with it.
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By Valefor.Sehachan 2015-03-30 11:45:51
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Bahamut.Lyncath said: »
here in the UK and across Europe where extreme far-right parties are on the march again
Unfortunately even here in Italy they're gaining a lot of consensus -.- makes me sick when my mom sees their leader talking on tv and goes like "ahh this guy seems so smart, he says a lot of true things!" sigh, why are the worst people always the best communicators?
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By Lakshmi.Sparthosx 2015-03-30 11:47:35
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The worst people play on your fears and that's the easiest way to spur action in people.

Rational thinking takes work and the human species is pretty apt to laziness.
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By Bahamut.Kara 2015-03-30 11:52:55
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It is easy to sell fear, everyone has some.

Humanity also likes to play the blame game, as seen repeatedly on these forums. "Foreigners" are easy targets and this has been demonstrated throughout history.
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By fonewear 2015-03-30 11:54:57
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Lakshmi.Sparthosx said: »
The worst people play on your fears and that's the easiest way to spur action in people.

Rational thinking takes work and the human species is pretty apt to laziness.

Thinking wasn't that outlawed in 2012 ?
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By fonewear 2015-03-30 11:56:11
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We elect leaders to do the thinking for us !
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By fonewear 2015-03-30 11:58:13
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I don't dare question Obama's leadership. He is leading his *** off.
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By Heimdel 2015-03-30 12:04:37
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Valefor.Sehachan said: »
Bahamut.Lyncath said: »
here in the UK and across Europe where extreme far-right parties are on the march again
Unfortunately even here in Italy they're gaining a lot of consensus -.- makes me sick when my mom sees their leader talking on tv and goes like "ahh this guy seems so smart, he says a lot of true things!" sigh, why are the worst people always the best communicators?

They have the most experience running their mouth.
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By Bahamut.Lyncath 2015-03-30 12:04:52
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Valefor.Sehachan said: »
Bahamut.Lyncath said: »
here in the UK and across Europe where extreme far-right parties are on the march again
Unfortunately even here in Italy they're gaining a lot of consensus -.- makes me sick when my mom sees their leader talking on tv and goes like "ahh this guy seems so smart, he says a lot of true things!" sigh, why are the worst people always the best communicators?
I have family in Naples and they have mentioned this to me a few times.

It's alarming to see that three far-right parties have either been formed or seen a resurgence here in the UK ever seen we became involved in the Middle East and especially after the July 7th London Bombings. I'm not providing direct links to these groups web pages as I do not want to give them traffic.

British National Party: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Party
English Defense League: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Defence_League
United Kingdom Independence Party: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Independence_Party

Admittedly I'll say that of these three the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) is the lesser of the evils but they are still the equivalent of Thatcherite-concentrate.

I'm quite proud to live in a part of England where the townspeople, myself included, literally forced the English Defense League out of town a few years ago and the British National Party a few years before them.

http://www.exeterexpressandecho.co.uk/Hundreds-gather-oppose-Exeter-EDL-demonstration/story-20086557-detail/story.html
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By fonewear 2015-03-30 12:05:04
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On Syria Obama declared victory is Syria time to move on people !
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By Leviathan.Chaosx 2015-03-30 12:10:06
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Obama has his hands full trying to promote a fast path to remove national sovereignty from other nations using asinine trade deals.

So you can blame Bush for his haphazard plan to install democracy, but Obama is doing things that are just as bad, only in disguise, unless you actually read these deals he's pushing.

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Congressional Democrats are set to demonstrate their “lack of support” for the fast track and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) the morning after Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, according to a statement.

As expected, Obama demanded the authority to fast track international trade agreements in his sixth State of the Union address.

While not directly mentioning either the TPP, the international free trade deal with 11 nations in the Asia Pacific region; or the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the European Union, the president asked Congress for the authority to fast-track the trade deals, calling them “[not] just free, but fair”.

Using the same term he has repeatedly used to describe the deals, Obama said that 21st century businesses needed to sell more American products overseas: “Today, our businesses export more than ever, and exporters tend to pay their workers higher wages.”

As in last year’s State of the Union address, the president brought up China as a formidable threat, accusing the Asian manufacturing behemoth of wanting to write the rules for trade in the high growth Asia Pacific regions.

“We should write those rules. We should level the playing field. That’s why I’m asking both parties to give me trade promotion authority to protect American workers, with strong new trade deals from Asia to Europe that aren’t just free, but fair,” he said, urging Congress to give him the trade promotion authority to fast-track the trade agreement.

Under the fast-track, Congress will have to vote on the agreements but is not allowed to make changes to the terms.

After the TPP found opposition from his own party, the president said he will defy Democrats to go ahead with the trade deal.

The TPP is being negotiated behind closed doors, with the advice of a few trade unions and consumer advocacy groups besides 600 corporate advisors. Experts’ main gripe with the deal is that it resembles older trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) in 1994 – credited with the loss of hundreds of thousands of American jobs to Mexico.

As fears of fresh offshoring prompted by TPP and TTIP emerge, Obama confronted doubts, promising a new and improved deal.

“Look, I’m the first one to admit that past trade deals haven’t always lived up to the hype, and that’s why we’ve gone after countries that break the rules at our expense,” he said.

The president said that more than 95% of the world’s customers lived outside the US and put his faith in “manufacturing executives” who have promised to bring jobs back from China. “Let’s give them one more reason to get it done,” he said.

But trade experts are not convinced, saying that going ahead with the trade deals would contradict his enthusiasm for “middle-class economics” – the main focus of his address.

“Progress from Obama’s middle class economics policies would be destroyed by his push for more of the same trade agenda that has offshored good-paying jobs, forced wages down, increased income inequality and fueled the demise of America’s middle class,” Lori Wallach, the director of Global Trade Watch said in a statement released soon after the address.
Democrats oppose Obama's demand for fast-tracking Pacific trade deal

Quote:
Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) is an instrument that allows an investor to bring a case directly against the country hosting its investment, without the intervention of the government of the investor’s country of origin. In December 2013, a coalition of over 200 environmentalists, labor unions and consumer advocacy organizations on both sides of the Atlantic sent a letter to the USTR and European Commission demanding the investor-state dispute settlement be dropped from the trade talks, claiming that ISDS was "a one-way street by which corporations can challenge government policies, but neither governments nor individuals are granted any comparable rights to hold corporations accountable". Some point out the "potential for abuse" that may be inherent in the trade agreement due to its clauses relating to investor protection.
Factsheet on Investor-State Dispute Settlement
The TTIP deal hands British sovereignty to multinationals
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By Lakshmi.Sparthosx 2015-03-30 12:10:18
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In one corner you've got many immigrants to Europe blaming the old colonizers for *** up their nations for decades to come. The lack of jobs and opportunity the perfect seeding grounds for animosity. Religion gets amplified when people are in desperate situations.

In the other corner you've got natives who feel the new folk are bringing in their backwards beliefs, trampling on the 'house rules' and generally shitting up the place as their opportunities also shrink as the momentum swings East.

And in America we're worrying if Kim Kardashians *** are symmetrical. Or if climate change is a real thing.
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By fonewear 2015-03-30 12:15:16
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To answer your question: Her *** are symmetrical and climate change is real Al Gore told me so !
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By Valefor.Sehachan 2015-03-30 12:15:38
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Al Gore told you about the ***?
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By fonewear 2015-03-30 12:16:06
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Is my option of destroying the Middle East and turning it into a shopping mall out of the question ?
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By fonewear 2015-03-30 12:16:30
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Valefor.Sehachan said: »
Al Gore told you about the ***?

No about global warming.

Also 1 in 5 Americans can't find Syria on a map.
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By Lakshmi.Sparthosx 2015-03-30 12:20:01
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fonewear said: »
Is my option of destroying the Middle East and turning it into a shopping mall out of the question ?

About as good as ISIS' plan to revive the Caliphate.
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By fonewear 2015-03-30 12:20:45
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To end the global warming debate:

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By Lakshmi.Sparthosx 2015-03-30 12:23:37
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Who gives a ***about Al Gore? That guy stopped being relevant when he transformed himself into a polar bear.

Is science liberal?
I wonder what alignment reality polls. Someone get Marist on the horn.
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By fonewear 2015-03-30 12:25:01
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Come on we used to have a global warming thread almost once a month.
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By palladin9479 2015-03-30 13:02:17
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Lakshmi.Sparthosx said: »
How you decide to approach Iran is wholly dependent on if you think Iran is a rational player on the world stage. Obama thinks as much, Bibi and the Republicans not so much.

Do we continue to antagonize Iran eventually pushing them up against the wall, the fuel for conflict, or do we attempt to negotiate some type of deal? It's pragmatism vs. idealism here. Irans not a friendly state but the US has dealt with far worse monsters in the past. You know, like Saddam-***-Hussain. So again, what's the argument here? Obama's cutting a deal with 'terrorists'? Well, every president since WWII has done that.

Israel is totally out on any negotiations with Iran but should we be quick to side with Israel rather than act in our own interest which involves mainly to keep the ME from going to ***? I hesitantly say that considering our actions but the ideal is that.

Israel isn't doing ***on that front. Israel isn't part of the United States. Israel is an ally. You don't always take your ally's pleas at face value.

Both Iran and Israel are rational actors doing what they believe is in the best interests of their own citizens. Iran is finally starting to open up to reforms, mostly because it's economy is starting to crumble due to the tremendous fall in oil prices. Iran, like most other oil exporters, relied on international sales to fund it's social programs, with that funding drying up it's starting to need economic reforms to get off oil sales, which in turn means it needs international relations. The problem is that it's current government maintained control over the population by creating a fictional bogey man and blaming it for all their problems, that bogey man is the USA and Israel. The USA did the same thing with "terrorism" and North Korea is still doing it with "everyone else besides our dear friend China". It's a fairly standard political maneuver but in this case has produced some profound consequences for Iran. They can't very well go back to their own population after brokering a deal with "the Devil", it would erode the support base the government was built on. So now they gotta do this song and dance where they put on shows of force and antagonistic public peaches, not for our benefit but to demonstrate to their own populations that they are still "in charge" and "strong". Which brings us to Israel.

Israel is surrounded by nations who's leaders have frequently gone on record as saying they wanted to exterminate the Israeli people. These speeches and political positions were made abundantly clear in the war that happened shortly after the founding of Israel. These positions have been routinely reinforced in both speech and action, Hamas was essentially Iran's proxy entity created to attack Israel. Since the US made it known that it will defend Israel should another nation attack it, those other nations instead used gorilla forces to conduct antagonistic operations against Israel covertly. So from Israel's point of view, they are currently in a covert war with nearly everyone nearby and thus they are in a constant defensive state. Their government must view Iran as attempting to acquire a nuclear device for the purposes of smuggling into Tel Aviv or even possibly even Jerusalem. To do otherwise would be to open the possibility for an openly hostile entity conducting a nuclear strike on your homeland. They are the favorite political whipping boy of Europe and will likely remain as such for the foreseeable future. They know this and have long since given up putting any merit into anything a Eurocrat says.

Remember the USA invaded another nation and started a long protracted war because a terrorist organization used airplanes as flying missiles and struck at us. Israel on the other hand has shown incredibly restraint in the matter of Hamas firing off rockets. These attacks were coming from a place that Israel had previously had civilians living in, but forcibly relocated them under the agreement that there would be no more aggression. The results of that agreement was constant rocket attacks, Hamas defied the peace and instead decided they wanted to contribute to the global cause of Jewish genocide. Thus Israel won't trust any agreements made with any terrorist entity nor any government power that backs and provides support for those same entities.

We are in a position where Iran, and other nearby countries need to make Israel feel secure that they won't be experiencing hostilities, overt or covert, from them. They would need to recognize Israel, publicly condemn attacks on Israeli civilian targets, disband their covert military organizations (seriously Hamas military is basically a branch of the Iranian military) and stop funding other guerrilla organizations. That's not likely to happen because it would result in a massive loss of power in the Muslim world. There isn't much Israel can do until that happens "playing nice" isn't an option when everyone around you is talking about committing the divinely mandated act of genocide on all your people.