In a lot of ways this war is incredibly similar to the last Lebanon war, where the general consensus was that Israel lost.

After all, we have much of the same leadership, massive numbers of Israelis (and Israeli towns and cities) are under missile threat and attack, we are running constant air sorties, the question has begun as to when to introduce ground troops, and the calls for Israel to cease fire (from the media, the left, and certain other politicized parties) has begun.

Yet, despite all that, this time around I think the universal feeling is that we are winning.

Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi seems to have everything in hand and well prepared, and it is pretty clear to all that Hamas is losing.

What a difference a ground forces RamatKal makes (as opposed to a pilot).

Unfortunately, the government still hasn't clearly defined the goals of this campaign, and worse, the options they are probably considering are lousy - a temporarily weakened Hamas, regime change to Fatah, or an IDF Civil Administration - but no return to our towns. Someone might say they learned from the last war not to announce goals - but even amongst themselves?

Meanwhile, the IDF is very angry at certain parties trying to influence their actions from the outside.

In the final analysis, Olmert will come out of this with his reputation rehabilitated, while he manages to B-slap Livni yet again simply by asking Netanyahu to talk to the foreign press as an official government representative. Barak comes out looking good after Ashkenazi did all the hard work and planning for him.

What actually ends up in Gaza, is still up in the air.