Listen to the People Olmert, Not the Spin Doctors

The government voted to expand the ground offensive on Wednesday - but held off on implementing it to supposedly give the diplomats one more chance to come to an agreement.

Everyone knows that the ground offensive is going to be hard - and a lot of soldiers will die. The politicians are naturally worried about the effects on their careers afterwards, and are looking nervously at the national mood to guage whether or not to proceed.

I have a hint for you guys - LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE, NOT THE SPIN DOCTORS.

Listen to your army - they guys who are going to actually do the fighting and dying. The IDF "wants to move, fight, and attack".

Listen to the people - 90% say the war is justified. (Ignore the misleading headline - obviously written by someone who did not like the contents of the article, and read the whole thing) This is based on a survey done by Tel-Aviv University, not exactly a hotbed of neo-conservatism. As a matter of fact, those doing the survey admitted that they were surprised at the results. "The public is united in the belief that the war is justified. Similar data was published at the start of the war and two weeks into it, but we didn't think that support would remain so high a month after the war broke out."

Listen to the people who are sick of the spin, and know that "A war of spin is a war that is divorced from reality...", as Ari Shavit writes in this excellent piece in Haaretz.

He writes "The name of the game now is national will. Only a full enlistment of national will and all national resources will lead to a crucial national victory on the battlefield. This national will cannot be enlisted on the basis of spin, but only on the basis of truth."

Listen to Natan Sharansky, who says that we have to win militarily, and accurately claims that you are hesitating too much.

And yes, listen to the left wing - but more importantly - count them. Last night there was a protest in Tel-Aviv against the war. This time it was not just sponsored by the radical left (Anarchists against the wall, etc.) but both Peace Now and the Meretz party joined in. Only 600 people showed up. And this number was reported by AP, which leads me to believe that it is inflated. Further proof of the failure of this protest is the fact that the web sites chose to focus on the words of a few intellectuals (A.B. Yehoshua, Amos Oz, and David Grossman) instead of the protest itself. Ynetnews.com put their article in the "Culture" section and not in the news section - because they think that these people represent a small fringe view.