In the time that has passed since the Second Lebanon War, Israeli society has been washed over by an unprecedented wave of criticism aimed at the decision-makers in the Government and Defense Forces. By contrast to previous wars, many of the basic facts about this war reached the public several months after it ended, through the publication of the Interim Report of the Winograd Committee. In the resultant atmosphere, the impression arose that the Israeli media, which led the wave of criticism in question, had been critical of the war even while it was going on. This report is intended to set the record straight: except for a few exceptional instances, which are set forth in this report, all of Israel's main media covered the war in an almost entirely mobilized manner.

The report is based on analysis of nine thousand media items that appeared during the entire war in the three major newspapers, Yediot Aharonoth, Maariv and Haaretz, and in the news broadcasts of the three major channels, Channel 1, Channel 2 and Channel 10.

Among the findings:

• Goals of the War: The complete support that the media gave to the Second Lebanon War, from its very first days until its end, was primarily reflected in the way the media reported to their readers and viewers on the goals of the war. These goals, which kept changing from day to day, were each time presented as unequivocal and justifiable. The frequent changes in the declared objectives and their basis in reality were not discussed in a critical manner.
• The Decision Makers: At the beginning of the war Olmert and Peretz were presented as steadfast and strong military leaders, who fearlessly controlled the situation. As the campaign in Lebanon went awry, voices from the military establishment, claiming that the political establishment was preventing the IDF from acting freely and not allowing it to win, took over the headlines. Reports on the back seat taken by the political establishment in favor of the IDF, and the scandalous nature of the working relationship between them, were marginalized.
• The Fear of Defeat: The grave events in the course of the war were covered in a way which did not attempt to conceal the fact that the IDF was having difficulty functioning and, notably, was not managing to win. Yet the overall feeling aroused by this coverage was not one of criticism, but rather, one of defeat. This atmosphere also grew stronger in light of the media's fascination with the other side –Hezbollah and its leader Nasrallah. All this eventually gave rise to a near-hysterical feeling of existential war in the media. The IDF's failures were deemed to have only one meaning: Israel was losing its deterrent force – and therefore, the war should never have been stopped before victory had been achieved.
• Coverage of the Israeli Home Front: The suffering of civilians in the North was harnessed to support the war, and was accordingly told in two parts. One part told of Jewish civilians, who, in keeping up their day-to-day routine, were conveying a clear message to the enemy, the Government and the IDF: "They won't break us. We are strong, and we give the Government and the IDF our backing in whatever they do." The other part, which told of Arab civilians, was almost obsessively devoted to the question of loyalty: "Are you with us or against us?" In this state of affairs, the media coverage left almost no room to report on the actual situation of Israel's northern citizens, their day-to-day suffering, their urgent need for help from the Government, and those among them who did not necessarily support the war.
• Damage to Southern Lebanon: Coverage of the massive damage in Lebanon revealed a fascinating pattern. Before the Israel Air Force bombing of Kafr Qana, on July 30, in which dozens of civilians were killed, the suffering of Lebanese civilians was given rather broad, and sometimes even empathic, coverage. However, it was almost entirely separated, by all possible editing means, from the IDF operations which caused the suffering in question. The IDF was described as taking pains not to harm the civilian population, whose suffering was described separately, as a disaster which befell them out of nowhere. After the strike on Kafr Qana, almost all of the media were mobilized on behalf of the IDF propaganda mission, and made an effort to explain, time after time, that only Hezbollah was at fault for the Lebanese deaths. At that point, when public opinion worldwide shifted and condemned Israel for its operations in Lebanon, this mobilization was supplemented by the old, familiar adage: "The whole world is against us."
• Diplomatic Negotiations: In the absolute majority of cases, the media clearly and explicitly reflected the derision expressed by the decision-makers with regard to the diplomatic negotiations. The coverage of the diplomatic option appeared in the inside pages of the newspapers and deep inside the news broadcasts – and was buried in a mass of headlines, which were mobilized with a patriotic fervor on behalf of the war effort. Muffling those voices which held that a diplomatic solution was in Israel's best interests, including the voice of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, unequivocally showed that the Israeli media preferred a military victory over a diplomatic solution. Overall, the media adopted the IDF's fear that a diplomatic arrangement would only keep the IDF from "finishing the job".

Courageous, critical media reporting is meaningless when carried out in retrospect. The really difficult questions have to be asked while the war is still being waged, when there is still a chance for a change. Therefore, the question is not only how the Israeli media covered the Second Lebanon War. The really important question is how the media will cover the next war. The media professionals, the editors and managers, the correspondents and commentators, must subject themselves to the same moral reckoning they demanded after the war – and rightly so – of the decision-makers in the Government and Defense Forces. This must happen, and it must happen now. Before – not after – the next war breaks out.