Israeli support for attack on Lebanon

Both supporters and opponents of Israel's recent invasion and re-occupation of Lebanon have cited--for different reason--the fact that upwards of 92% of Israeli Jews were in support of the attack on Lebanon for most of July. I don’t know how the exact questions were constructed. Anyone familiar even slightly with the politics of polls understands that one gets particular results and "numbers" based largely on how questions get asked. So, one might be--depending on where one stand--very depressed that 9 of 10 Israeli Jews would agree to policies that were killing hundreds of innocent civilians a week, absolutely decimating entire areas of Beirut and other cities, towns, and villages, and terrorizing millions of innocent Lebanese, starting with the 800,000 who were forced to flee in fear from their homes during this hot and horrible summer.

But I wonder if numbers like 90% would be generated through these polls if Israelis had been forced to respond to the realities of this war directly. Would so large a segment of Israeli society have been in favor of this attack if it had been suggested that many hundreds of innocents would die and many hundreds of civilian homes would be razed to the ground? Or if the question was phrased like this: "Are you in favor of an military attack on Lebanon if hundreds of innocent Lebanese and dozens of Israeli civilians are killed"?

I suspect not.

I suspect that even in a country as utterly racist as Israel, where Palestinians are routinely treated as badly as Blacks were in Apartheid South Africa, Jewish citizens would be far less willing to exhibit complete enthusiasm for this invasion had the question been framed to take into account civilian loss. Add to that the realities that materialized (political defeat at the hands of Hezbollah; the failure to free Israeli soldiers held captive; the death of nearly 140 Israeli soliders for nothing) and the numbers would probably look a bit different.

As Israel's absolutely senseless invasion bleeded into week three and four, a range of opinion in the Hebrew press began denouncing the Olmert/Peretz government harshly. Calls for accountability were heard, as were explicit calls for the government to step dow--or be brought down. This offered, on the surface, perhaps some hope that Israelis had seen the criminality associated with the destruction of entire Lebanese neighborhoods. But as one read these critiques of the bumbling Olmert, a singular lack of condemnation was in evidence for the killing of over 1000 Arab civilians. Further, nearly all of the opposition was contextualized by the facts of Israeli loss, Israeli soldiers dead, Israeli towns hit by rockets, Israeli fears and traumas. And, sometimes, by the Israeli failures to hit "them Arabs" sufficiently hard enough to make them plead for mercy; for Hezbollah to be decimated. The only thing Olmert probably decimated during the perpetration of serious war crimes, were his chances for re-election, his plans for what he refers to as "Convergence," and any hope that he will become a well-regarded leader.