Elves are way worse than goblins. At least goblins stand by their convictions. They want to snatch some babies, and they by gods DO IT.
Elves deeply hate those who disrespect nature, but yet they don't bother to say anything about it unless you have nobility to talk to. Being snooty is more important than their core ethics, I guess. All the while they're trading with you anyway, two faced, inconsistent fops. Then when you do get a baron they're like "Oh uh please don't chop down trees" and then a whole year later "Uh I'm just trying to be polite here, guy, maybe a compromise? Maybe like, 200 trees? Please like me!" And then a whole year later, maybe they'll get around to invading if you chop down the whole forest. Something like 7 years after you first performed capital offenses in their eyes? And even then they don't even stand you down face to face about it. They snipe you from the tree line. As if they still want you to like them even while invading ("maybe he won't know it's us shooting him!").
They are the very embodiment of pushovery passive aggressive,.... everything the opposite of dwarves.
I'm willing to bet if you captured their diplomat with a webbed trap, then chained him in front of the trading depot with an elven caravan, build a carpentry shop right in front of them from freshly cut trees 10 yards away, crafted new wooden bolts, and slowly firing squadded him to death with untrained marksdwarves in front of them... and then tried to sell the bolts to the caravan, they probably still wouldn't declare war on you.