Self-criticism: A sign of weakness or strength?

Is the Winograd report that criticizes Israel's performance during the early part of this summer's Hezbollah War, the definitive evidence that Israel lost this latest Israeli-Arab battle?

Gaza correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, Khaled Abu Toameh, has an interesting perspective here:

While most Arabs viewed the scathing report as a sign of Israel's "defeat," a few took a different stance by looking at the positive aspects of Israel's democratic system.

"By establishing commissions of inquiry after wars and holding those responsible for failure accountable, Israel is showing how strong it is," said newspaper columnist Hassan Khader. "We in Palestine and the Arab world are weak because we have failed to stop our governments, establish commissions of inquiry, point a blaming finger at our leaders and draw conclusions from our mistakes."

He said that had the Palestinians established a mechanism of supervision in the past decade, they would have been in a much better situation today.

"We failed to establish commissions of inquiry into the way decisions were being made or the way money was being wasted," Khader said. "That's why we have reached a stage where gangs and militias are popping up as fast as mushrooms and are hijacking our cause."