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Dr. Aaron Lerner is co-founder of , Independent Media Review and Analysis, an Israel-based news organization which provides an extensive digest of media, polls and significant interviews and events relating to the Israeli-Arab conflict.
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By Dr. Aaron Lerner
July 28, 2006
It is hard to tell if the Olmert team is on track in this war.
We have become a media savvy nation over the years and have grown accustomed to the idea that ministers and other officials recite to the press from literally the same daily talking points page when discussing pressing matters.
Now it seems as if the Olmert team members are speaking extemporaneously when they describe Israel's objectives in this war. Not only does each team member say something different - individual officials are inconsistent from presentation to presentation.
Is the Olmert team in touch with the will of the People?
It would appear at this stage that the Israeli public has the maturity to understand that military operations cost lives and is willing to make the sacrifice so long as those operations can be related to the achievement of clear objectives (and are not the byproduct of a bogus morality that makes the lives of Arabs shielding terrorists more sacred than Israeli lives).
The coming days will certainly shed light on these questions.
But one thing must be clear: with all the gravity of the situation, this is hardly the Jewish State's "final exam".
If it turns out in the coming period that Mr. Olmert and his team ultimately project weakness and hesitation rather than strength and determination, a prompt change in the ruling national leadership would give Israel a second shot at re-establishing its standing.
And given the composition of the Kadima Party itself, such a change might be possible, under those circumstances, without even requiring elections, as politicians with a healthy survival instinct scramble to distance themselves from Olmert.
This opportunity for a prompt second shot, though certainly costly, is one of the tremendous advantages Israel enjoys as a democracy.
Hopefully the Olmert team's performance in the coming period will spare Israel the need for such expensive damage control.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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