I've been given an assignment by a friend of mine in Israel. She's near Jerusalem, out of the line of fire - so far. She sent me the following email:
I'm finished being depressed (though that may well return periodically--ten killed today in one Katyusha strike)--now I'm mad.It looks like we are losing the PR war even though we are doing good work on the ground. I'm not talking about the pictures of Lebanese dead and refugees ad nauseum; I'm talking about the fact that Nasrallah is weaving a narrative of victory, even as he is taking it on the chin. Being a democracy, we criticize ourselves endlessly and keep wondering whether we're doing the right thing, etc. etc.
In a war against terror, the narrative is important, because this is not going to be a knock-down, cry-uncle situation even if we win. Hizbullah is not a sovereign state (although it functions as a state-within-a-state and a powerful military organization in Lebanon) so it will never have to concede defeat and/or sign any formal declaration of defeat. They can *always* claim to have won, even if we manage to assassinate Nasrallah (halevai...). So we have to change the narrative--*not* because we're losing, but because we're winning and to defeat terrorists we have to be seen by the world--particularly the Arab world--to be winning.
So your assignment is to change the narrative in your corner of the blog world (blogosphere?), and ask others who think as you do to do the same. Believe me, this is almost as important as what the soldiers are doing in the field. It may be even *more* important in the long run.
Honestly, I don't think I can do much better than this. We're winning this war on the ground. We need to let the world know that fact.