First hints of Israeli dissent

By Bethany Bell
BBC News, Jerusalem

Over the past few weeks, support among Israelis for the military campaign against Hezbollah has remained high, but for the first time this may be changing.

One peace campaigner said the war had spiralled out of control

A recent poll published in the mass circulation Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper suggests that 75% of Israelis think the decision to go to war was right.

Despite the rising number of casualties and the disruption to life in northern Israel, where scores of Hezbollah rockets land every day, many people here say the fight must go on.

Many Israelis feel they have no choice but to strike hard at Hezbollah. They believe that at stake is the very survival of the state of Israel.

But there are signs that cracks are beginning to appear in the consensus.

The Yedioth Aronoth poll says 64% of Israelis (71% of Jewish respondents) support sending troops deeper into Lebanon, up to the Litani River.

But another poll in the more leftwing Haaretz newspaper suggests that only 39% of Israelis are in favour of an expanded ground offensive.

The Haaretz poll, of 570 Israelis, also suggests that support for the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is slipping.

Protests

The paper says the rising number of Israeli casualties and the continued Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel may be to blame for the drop in popularity.

Up to now, protests against the war have been mainly confined to the radical left and Israeli Arab groups.  

The campaign group Peace Now, which was at the forefront of opposition to the previous war in Lebanon, did not condemn the current military offensive.  

But more than four weeks into the conflict, that changed. The group held its first demonstration against the war, along with politicians from the opposition Meretz party.

The protest, in Tel Aviv, was a small one. Some of the demonstrators wore blue and white, the colours of the Israeli flag, to show their loyalty to the state. But their message was clear.

"The war has spiralled out of control and the government is ignoring the political options available," said Yariv Oppenheimer, general director of Peace Now.

Writing in The Jerusalem Post, the Meretz Knesset member Ran Cohen called the move to expand the ground offensive "a wretched decision".

"The government has fallen into the trap that [Hezbollah leader] Hassan Nasrallah has laid for it... We are ploughing back into the Lebanese quagmire," he said.

'Cabinet splits'

Public sentiment has mostly called for more aggressive action, not less - one likely factor in the government's decision to escalate military operations.

But some doubts have been growing as to whether Hezbollah can be destroyed and there are reports of splits in the Israeli cabinet about how to manage the crisis.

The Haaretz newspaper suggests that despite the fact that a majority of ministers voted for an expanded ground offensive, some would prefer a political rather than a military solution.

One article suggests that Mr Olmert is not pleased with the army's performance and is convinced that the war must be stopped.

Other papers report on a growing frustration in the army that the broader campaign has been put on hold.  

A majority of Israelis still support the military offensive but a sense of weariness has set in.

"People were more enthusiastic about this conflict at the beginning," one man from Tel Aviv told me.

"But now everyone just wants things to quieten down. We want things to return to normal."