Israel part 20 of a 2 part series

"Israelis, rightly, look at the past and have skepticism about what’s possible. They see the enmity of neighbors that surround them in a very tough neighborhood. They see a track record of attempts at peace where, even when concessions were made, a deal could not be consummated. They see rockets fired from Gaza or from areas in Lebanon, and say to themselves that the hatreds or history are so deep-seated that change is not possible.

And yet, if you think back to the founding of Israel, there were a lot of people who thought that that wasn’t possible either. And if Herzl or Ben-Gurion were looking at Israel today, they would be astonished at what they saw -- a country that’s vibrant, that is growing economically at a extraordinary pace, that has overcome not just security challenges but also has been able to overcome challenges related to geography. And so that should be a great source of hope," - President Obama

It would help if we gave them a bit of a nudge toward guaranteeing their own interests. Say, dropping the several billion in military aid with some guarantee that we'd come and fight on their side if there's ever some existential threat to the state itself (which is highly unlikely in the near term at least).