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Keep Calm and Work with Israel to Defeat the Security Threat from Islamic State
(Telegraph-UK) Lord Trimble and Robert Quick - Britain is locked in conflict abroad with an enemy that directly threatens our home front. The assessment of the security services is that even if the Caliphate of the Islamic State were defeated, we will be at significant risk from Islamist terrorism at home as its fighters disperse and focus on external operations against our and other democratic nations. Citizens across the continent are asking how to sustain our societies' liberal and democratic values in the face of this brutal menace. To prevail, we must be united, realistic about the deadly threat we confront, and tactically astute in how we mitigate and eventually defeat its modus operandi of indiscriminate, maximum casualty attacks. No democratic nation has endured Islamist terrorism to the extent that Israel has. It has learned from bitter experience and become extraordinarily resilient, coping with stresses until recently unimaginable to European policymakers, while flourishing as an economically successful democratic nation. Israel's intelligence prowess is not only a major factor in its successful fight against Islamist terror, but as an ally to the UK and other democracies it has and will continue to save lives here in Europe. Lord Trimble, a Nobel Peace Laureate, is former Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and a founding member of the Friends of Israel Initiative. Robert Quick is a former Assistant Commissioner responsible for counter-terrorism at the Metropolitan Police.