http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070506/NEWS07/705060598

JERUSALEM — The parallels between the United States’ war in Iraq and Israel’s war against Hizballah last summer are striking: Both stemmed from surprise attacks, both were overwhelmingly popular at their start and both grew widely unpopular as more troops died and victory remained elusive.

But Israel has done something the United States has yet to do: Assess what went wrong and assign blame for the mistakes.

Credit Israeli law and culture. Almost from its inception, the country has embraced a candid culture of criticism, despite the fact that it has crippled some legendary leaders.

Now Ehud Olmert, the prime minister who launched the 34-day war with Hizballah, is being called to account by a special commission whose interim report this week could bring down his government.

“We have a tradition: Prophets go against kings,” said Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, an independent Israeli research center. “It’s a society that has an ingrained disrespect for authority.”

There are many reasons to think Israel would reject an invasive self-evaluation process that reveals its internal divisions and exposes its weaknesses. It is nearly surrounded by armed adversaries, exists on the front line of the war on terrorism and rarely has gone more than a few years without a major military confrontation.

That fact, Inbar said, makes it all the more important that Israel correct its mistakes quickly. “So what if America loses the war in Iraq?” he said. “If we lose a war, it’s an existential threat. We cannot afford not knowing the truth.”

In Israel, commissions are set up under a unique system that authorizes the country’s Supreme Court to choose their members to handle most such investigations. No other country in the world gives that authority to its high court, said Dana Blander, an expert on the process at the Israel Democracy Institute, a research center.

In the past 40 years, such commissions, known under a 1968 law as Official Commissions of Inquiry, have undertaken 15 investigations.

The panel reviewing last summer’s war was set up under a different system.

As a Governmental Commission of Inquiry, its members were picked by Olmert’s government under a law passed in 2000. It was considered less independent than a court-appointed panel, but showed no qualms about criticizing Olmert.

Missing from the debate, however, is any suggestion that criticism of Olmert is disloyal, tantamount to treason or damaging to the morale of Israeli troops, even though Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah praised the panel’s findings.

David Hazony, editor of Azure, a leading Israeli academic journal, said because nearly every Israeli is required to serve in the army, there is a deep empathy and understanding of the military.