“Citizens of Israel,” he begins, launching into one of his usual addresses to the nation. His makeup artist interrupts him.
“What a disaster,” he says.
This, of course, is not the real Netanyahu. It's Mariano Edelman, the famous Israeli actor, rehearsing on a recent Tuesday afternoon for “Eretz Nehederet,” the country's most popular comedy show. Politicians, media personalities, hostages and displaced Israelis are fair game on the Israeli version of “Saturday Night Live” — but any criticism of the country's war in Gaza is off limits.
The show, which means “Wonderful Country,” has been a fixture in Israeli living rooms on Tuesday night for more than 20 years, criticizing government hypocrisy and finding joy in cultural differences. Nearly three months after the October 7 Hamas attack, the writers and actors are trying to maintain their reputation for irreverence, while providing relief to a community deeply traumatized.
Most of the people working on the program know someone who was killed or captured on October 7, said Muly Segev, a thin man with a shaved head who has been the show's executive producer since it aired in 2003.
The day after the attacks, Segev called a virtual meeting, “even though no one was in the mood for jokes.” The team began to process the events together, through conversation and eventually through comedy.
After about three weeks, they decided it was time to make an offer.
“The first offer was very, very cautious,” Segev said. “We were just trying to do something to lift people's spirits.” There was a sketch about Netanyahu's refusal to take responsibility for the attacks, and another about a grandmother trying to feed Hamas invaders with biscuits.
It turns out that the country was in desperate need of laughter. Viewership has increased by 32% since the show's return, according to the Israel Audience Research Council. At dinner tables across Israel, parents are debating whether the writers' room has gone too far on a sitcom about a soldier who returns from war with post-traumatic stress disorder. The kids won't stop singing the silly song about the Houthis.
“Comedy has always been a coping mechanism for Jewish people, but in this case it's also an ambassador for who we are as a nation,” said Itai Frank, an architect who came to watch the taping of the show with his wife and daughter.
Since October 7, Eretz Nehideret has also engaged in a kind of comedic diplomacy – releasing sketches entirely in English and reaching a large international audience.
Eight skits have garnered more than 80 million views around the world on social media and other platforms, largely mocking perceived support for the Palestinian cause among leftists and some media outlets in the United States and Britain.
In one scene, a BBC presenter orders her producer to increase the number of reported casualties in Gaza, then turns to reporter Harry Whitegelt and acts disappointed when it turns out that Israel did not bomb a hospital.
“What we do is just point out the irony of it all. And the hypocrisy of the media,” Segev said. “We see something ridiculous and something wrong and we deal with it with comedy and sarcasm.”
For their Israeli audience, Eretz Neheidert is trying to mine the darkness of recent months for humor, and the results may be controversial. A recent nine-minute video shows several former child hostages released by Hamas in November. A recurring taxi driver character picks them up.
“You should know that you're my favorite hostage. I voted for you,” the driver says, poking fun at reality TV call-in contests.
Two young siblings, Maya and Itay Regev, set out to tell the story of their kidnapping from the Nova Music Festival and their transfer to Gaza. Maya says her leg is broken and it was reset incorrectly.
The taxi driver also picks up two younger hostages, Ella and Dafna Eliakim, ages 8 and 15. They both recount their time living with a family in Gaza: The children in the house threatened to kill them and take all their jewelry, but Dafna held on to her nose ring.
“That was a little disappointing for me,” said Einav Schiff, chief television critic for Yedioth Ahronoth. “It's a complicated situation and I know for a fact that the intentions were good but sometimes the humor isn't good at everything.”
The program has so far remained silent about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where the Israeli war has killed more than 24,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
“They have become the stereotypical Israeli program, the kind that abounds on local television, and that reinforces the prevailing narrative in Israel that there is only one victim here,” said Rami Younis, a Palestinian journalist and director.
In one drawing, dead Gazans are depicted as crisis actors, faking their deaths for sympathy.
“They will punch Netanyahu right and left, but they will never do anything that makes the viewer think they do not support the troops,” Schiff said.
He suggested that part of that may have to do with the program's broadcaster, Channel 12 — one of the country's main networks — which “sees itself as a channel for Israelis.”
But the episodes also reflect what the series' creators think.
“We certainly see ourselves as part of the Israeli peace camp, and in previous rounds of the conflict, we have highlighted our audience's blind spots about the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank,” said David Lifshitz, a Middle East writer. the offer.
“But this time is different. After October 7, the Israelis began to view this war as an existential war. At this point we believe that the Israeli army is doing everything necessary to make sure that something like this never happens again.” .
However, the writers did not let the army completely off the hook.
During the rehearsals, Segev watched with interest as two actors played the roles of displaced people from northern Israel — forced to live in hotels as tensions rose with Hezbollah along the border with Lebanon.
The family is crammed into a queen-sized room with their children; Ugly square curtains that match the headboard of the bed. Segev asks a child actor to shrink deeper into the lavender-painted walls and focus on playing his video game.
“Well, it's not easy, but we allow the Israeli army to do its job in the north,” the woman says to the camera. “Whatever it takes – whatever it takes.”
She stutters, her brow furrowed. “By the way, did they say how long it would take?”
