It's interesting to see the news coming out of Israel since their little skirmish with Lebannon has been on hiatus, courtesy of a (very fragile) French-brokered cease fire. It's only been a month since the fight started, and already the Israelis have
turned against the effort.
The war against Hezbollah was widely seen here as a just response to a July 12 cross-border attack, during which the guerrilla group killed three soldiers and captured two. But Israel's wartime solidarity quickly crumbled after Israel agreed to pull its army out of south Lebanon without crushing Hezbollah or rescuing the captured soldiers.
A total of 118 soldiers were killed in the fighting and 39 Israeli civilians were slain by the 3,970 Hezbollah rockets that hit Israel. At least 842 Lebanese were killed in the fighting.
With Israelis banding together during the war, approval ratings soared for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, men with little military experience who took office just two months before the fighting started. Polls Wednesday showed a collapse in their popularity as Israelis began criticizing the conduct of the war.
Support for Olmert fell from 78 percent during the fighting to 40 percent in a poll of 500 people published by TNS-Teleseker. Peretz's approval rating plunged from 61 percent to 28 percent, according to the poll, which had a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.
The ex-air force general leading the attack has been heavily-criticized for focusing on bombing instead of a full ground assault early on, and he's even in trouble for taking time to sell off some stock shortly after the fighting started. Israel's president is being ruined by a sex scandal, the government's popularity has plunged, and his government is said to be crippled. All because the Israeli citizens are pissed about the way the war was fought, events during it, and the unsuccessful outcome. All that in less than a month of fighting.
I bring this up because it's enlightening to compare it to the US war in Iraq. Dubya's war has gone far worse for the US than the Lebannon one did for Israel, by almost any measure. Far higher US casualities, far greater civilian casualities, hundreds of billions more spent, oil prices driven to record highs, and all premised on a far shakier excuse. Yet look at the reaction of the US population. True, a majority of Americans have finally come to support a troop withdrawal deadline, and Bush's popularity is in the 30% range, but it took years to sink that low. Furthermore, while heads are poised to roll in the Israeli military, no one has ever been held accountable for anything about Iraq. The only army officers who were fired over Iraq were the ones who (correctly) argued pre-invasion that the planning was hopelessly optimistic. Rumsfeld is still the Secretary of Defense, Bush is still president, and there has never been anyone held accountable for the general failure in planning and execution of the war effort. And it's not about to end soon; Bush has repeatedly vowed to continue the war until he's removed from office, three years from now. (Barring any miraculous impeachment efforts if the Democrats retake the House/Senate in November.)
Leaving George "Heck of a job, Brownie" Bush's loyalty-over-competence issues aside, what's the real difference here? Are the Israeli people that much more impatient, or critical, or serious, or what? Don't they support the war on terra?! Why do they expect results and hold their leaders responsible, while the US public required 4 years to even begin doing the same?
I'd guess it's mostly location; if failure in the Iraqi war caused rocket attacks to rain down on the US, the whole clusterfuck would have immediately hit home. Literally. It's easy to overlook military deaths and civilian massacres and blank check war profiteering when it's taking place on the other side of the world, and your government is urging you to live life just as normal; telling you not to make any sacrifices of any kind, or else the terrorists will have won. It's harder when you actually have to modify or even risk your life, as you dig through the rubble that was your neighbor's home, before Hezbollah rockets smashed into it?
Labels: israel, war
