Reality TV is generally the province of fans of the genre. Not here, though. Over the past year, the public has been forced into collective viewing of the reality show "Survivor," which is all about the survival of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Viewers observe with astonishment, mixed with disgust, the willingness of the show's hero - whom everyone had hoped to see kicked out - to do anything and everything, while the other contestants dropped out in previous episodes.

Over the year that has passed since the Second Lebanon War, the show's ratings have dropped, possibly because of despair and possibly because of the recognition that ultimately the contestant will be eliminated - if not because of our text messages, then because of the judges' votes. The diminishing numbers of viewers will presumably feel some disappointment over their limited ability to wield any influence. On the other hand, the past year has accustomed them to living with that feeling.

Perhaps that is why the ability to think of the future in new terms has gotten lost, and the present has turned into the past. In psychological lingo, this fixation is part of a post-traumatic response. How disappointing. Once upon a time, every war brought with it an interesting innovation. Once upon a time, every leader was a reaction to the one who preceded him. But now everything is returning to what it once was: the Second Lebanon War, the second Olmert government, a new and improved Ehud Barak (just like New Coke), a Benjamin Netanyahu who has learned his lessons.

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In addition to the trauma of the war, there is a feeling of failure on the part of a public that thought it could change things: that it could follow a new party, choose a prime minister without military experience and a civilian defense minister, and turn the disengagement into a stimulus for a comprehensive political solution. In short, a public that thought it could create a new reality.

On July 12, 2006, four and a half months after the general elections, this illusion was shattered. The only deviation from the trip back to the future is the establishment of a new political party by Russian-Israeli businessman Arcadi Gaydamak. Indeed, Gaydamak is the new order that emerged from the Second Lebanon War. On all other fronts, people return to the familiar with their tail between their legs, even if the familiar is unpopular. Even to disengagement supporters, the rubble left after the evacuation of the Gaza settlement of Elei Sinai and the West Bank settlement of Homesh don't seem like the beginning of the end of occupation, but like a pointless pile of stones.

This might have been good news for opponents of unilateralism, which was born of a sense of Israeli omnipotence. If at the beginning, it seemed that one of the results of this wretched war was a deep recognition of the limits of power and a measure of humility, the feeble conduct of the country's leaders translated the failure into a feeling of weakness. There is a huge difference between failure and weakness, and each leads to different political conclusions. A feeling of weakness can be exploited to continue frightening the public daily, each time in relation to a different front.

There's nothing like a little bit of fear of an impending war to unite a society around a failed leadership. The absence of a unifying ethos turns the fear and the urge to survive into a glue that binds the crumbling segments of society. The absence of a shared ethos was also what caused problems for the protest movement that resulted from the war. Nonetheless, Uzi Dayan, the most prominent figure leading that movement, still says the public has more power than it thinks - although the past year taught him that the real changes take place by way of the political system, no matter how weak and bad that may be.

Aside from being a military failure, the Second Lebanon War also had a destructive influence on Israeli society. This society, whose ties of solidarity had already been eroded, now appears to be falling apart. When sentiments like "There is no state" reflect the feelings of residents of both the North and the South, when the State of Tel Aviv has cut off its bilateral relations with the State of Israel and makes do with collecting donations for that other, poor country, every man is left to his own fate. All this fits in well with the fact that since the war ended, the Tel Aviv stock market has risen by 40 percent, breaking one record after another.

Two statistics from the 2007 democracy index of the Israel Democracy Institute illustrate the situation well: 79 percent of Israelis are worried by the situation the country is in, and the exact same proportion think they will be able to adapt to the new situation. Adaptability is also a kind of empowerment, as with an adolescent who grows up in a dysfunctional family and has to learn to cope on his own.

Citizens' convergence

The Israeli public, too, is learning to cope on its own - without the state, which has not fulfilled any of its functions, either during the war or thereafter. All the leaders seem to be doing is scattering threats about another war in the North; it is the residents who are actually preparing for it, whether by upgrading their bomb shelters or establishing an infrastructure for mental health treatment. The residents won't be caught unprepared again, especially since confidence in the Israel Defense Forces has eroded, precisely at a time when the need to depend on it has increased. One can even say that the so-called convergence plan is actually under way. Not the one Olmert promised, but rather the citizens' convergence into themselves. The public has disengaged from the state that disappointed it and that eroded the ethos of Israeli solidarity.

All the phenomena taking place in Israel's Jewish society are even more pronounced in Israel's Arab society. The war did lead to some sort of social solidarity that did not include the Arab population. The nonprofit aid organizations that did the government's work during and after the war for the most part skipped over Arab citizens, who were accused of providing emotional support to the enemy during wartime. For their part, the country's Arabs respond primarily by increasing seclusion.

Prof. Aziz Haidar, a sociologist who helped compile the document known as the "Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel," said he can clearly identify indications that the Arab population is disengaging from the Jewish one. These processes can be seen in education and commerce, he noted, as well as in the tendency of Arabs to remain in their villages without venturing into other parts of the country. "This will further accelerate the separation and the demand for autonomy," said Haidar.

In the meantime, the war has prevented a real discussion of the Future Vision document and others of a similar spirit. Jewish society, which has experienced a deep rift and is still in the midst of searching for its own vision, lacks the ability to cope with the challenge that Arab society is posing. Israeli Arab society sees the failure of the war primarily as a blow to the boastfulness of Jewish society, which feels hurt and vulnerable. Despite the desire to present the war as a moment of shared fate, the signs - including the trend of each society to withdraw into itself over the past year - do not bode well. The absence of leadership with a vision and a message in either society is a recipe for disaster.