Crunching Some Numbers
There’s some serious rumbles going on over in Israel regarding their Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert. Most of it is rooted in a public backlash against their war last summer with Lebanon. After watching CNN today and reading some online news articles, I can feel the monsoon of public outcry all the way across the Atlantic. I don’t claim to be an expert, but it made me think a bit about our national differences.
Public disdain of leadership isn’t necessarily shocking. What is interesting is comparing Israel and America’s leaders, GWB & Olmert, and the public action (or lack thereof) that has been taken.
I looked up a few numbers (for curiosities sake) and found myself a bit shocked by the differences between Israeli and American tolerance:
The 2006 Lebanon War: 33 days.
U.S.-Iraq War: 1502 days (give or take) and counting.
The 2006 Lebanon War: 119 Israeli military personnel dead.
U.S.-Iraq War: 3355 American military dead.
PM Ehud Olmert’s approval rating (as of today):below 3%!
Bush’s approval rating (as of today): 39%
What a difference!! It makes us look unusually complacent compared to the Israeli outrage against their PM for a failed 33 day war. Can you imagine if the Iraq war only lasted 33 days with 119 casualties? I think we’d be saying, “Iraq who?”. Instead Israel has taken to the streets.
Today in Tel Aviv, it was estimated that over 200,000 people convened in a peaceful protest to demand the resignation of PM Olmert. (Compared to a national population of 7.1 million, that’s huge!) Maybe public outrage is relative to population? Heritage? Social acceptance? LAZINESS? Either way, I think that the Israeli’s are kinda making us look bad.
Popularity: 11% [?]
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Israelis are extremely sensitive to the lives of their soldiers and to the fate of their soldiers in captivity. Shalit, Goldwasser, and Regev have been in captivity for nearly a year now - a time period which in past decades would be unthinkable to this country.
That’s part 1. Part 2 has to do with the feeling of being a small country surrounded by enemies - and thus, Israeli national defense doctrine is built around the concept of deterrence. Make the consequences too tough to pay for. Something similar happened after the Yom Kippur War, in which there was a similar sense of the loss of the image of strength. The difference then was that Golda Meir sensed the public mood and was wise enough to step down as PM.
Israel is a changing society and Israelis are looking at leaders who seem to care more for their own well-being than for that of the people. Israel began as a collective endeavor in almost every sense, and it seems that the days of truly caring, strong leaders are over.
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Shari on 
I think us as a nation are uninformed and lead but fear. We are hold what they want us to hear and most follow like sheep.