Lesson #1 Civilian Victims Will Blame their Attackers First and Foremost

This should have been obvious, right? Apparently, we needed a basic refresher course on human psychology. "If you kill a member of someone's family or blow up their home, they will be mad at you" would be a good rule-of-thumb. It's not just one of those quirky things that happens in Arab countries-it's pretty much true anywhere.

The U.S. and Israel seemed to place their hopes in the absurd idea that, when Israel bombed the homes and businesses of the Lebanese, the people of Lebanon would not blame them but would instead blame Hezbollah. Clearly this was not the case (which is not to say there aren't a number of Lebanese angered by Hezbollah's actions). Israel dropped leaflets on Lebanon's cities blaming Hezbollah for the violence (as well as Syria and Iran). In reality, most Lebanese blamed Israel and America for very obvious, and very understandable, reasons. The bombs were American-made and Israel, not Hezbollah, was the entity using them to kill Lebanese civilians. The most central component of any strategy to "win hearts and minds" should be to avoid civilian casualties at any cost. An ongoing air campaign is a very, very poor way to do that (see below).

It should have been obvious to Israel and the U.S. from the beginning that a large number of civilians casualties would have, in the court of Lebanese public opinion, caused their own popularity to go down and Hezbollah's popularity to go up.