Publications

No war in Israel’s war-filled history was accompanied by such extensive public opinion polling as was the Second Lebanon War. Indeed, more than by objective criteria, the course that the war took was determined to a large degree by the perceptions of the public on both sides. Perceptions do not necessarily reflect reality, but they have a power of their own. This essay, devoted to Israeli public opinion during and after the war, deals solely with perceptions. Closely intertwined with this phenomenon is the fact that Israeli media coverage of this war was all pervasive and unprecedented in extent. For the first time in Israel’s history, the IDF published on a daily basis the number of soldiers killed in action on that day. The media gave extensive coverage to the casualties, coverage that included the name of each soldier killed in action, his picture, interviews with his family and friends, the time and place of his funeral, and in many instances, coverage of the funeral itself. Especially when the number of casualties was high, at least by Israeli standards, coverage of the casualties overshadowed that of the actual events on the battlefield. The particular media coverage in Israel had a major effect on the development of public opinion surrounding the Second Lebanon War.