The most ironic moment on the broadcast of the first episode of the new season of Eretz Nehederet, Israel’s premiere comedy show, which ran on Keshet 12 on Wednesday night, was unintentional.
In a sketch about Israelis moving to Greece to escape the war, a man says he moved because he wants his son “to have a normal childhood.” At the very second he uttered those words, several white lines with the names of towns in Israel popped up on the upper-right side of the screen, which all Israelis know means these places are being attacked by missiles.
For a second, it seemed like a joke, because the show had made fun of these missile warnings earlier, in a sketch where host Eyal Kitzis said that the network was now matching the warnings to the program, showing, for example, a cooking program in progress and with a warning of a missile attack on Manot, a town in Israel, which is a Hebrew word that means, “portions.”
But the warnings that popped up during the sketch about Israelis in Greece were all too real, an unwelcome reminder that no matter how much we may try to forget about the war and watch some comedy, it’s far from over.
Eretz Nehederet has been on hiatus for months, but the last 24 hours have given the writers enough material for hours of satire. Kitzis welcomed the newly reelected Donald Trump, played by Omer Etzion, and congratulated him on his victory. Trump was shown doing his trademark fist-pumping awkward dance from inside a giant container of McDonald’s fries and said he was celebrating at his favorite restaurant. “I’m waiting for my happy meal. Who knows what toy I will get? Maybe a Pokemon. Maybe a country.”
Trump went on to claim that the election results were fraudulent, as he did when he lost in 2020, but Kitzis pointed out that he had won. “I should have won by a lot more,” Trump responded.
Asked what his policy toward Israel would be, he said, “I’m going to be the best president for Israel ever. Or the worst. Who knows? Am Israel Chai!” He said he loved Israel, which he described as a “red state,” and started naming places that he said were red, like Nahariya, not understanding that red alerts were about missiles and not politics. He didn't listen when Kitzis tried to explain it.
When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed up to congratulate him, Trump didn’t seem to recognize Bibi, then said, “Oh, it’s Sara’s husband. You gotta love Sara.” Asked to say more about what his policy toward Israel would be, he said, “Hamas are very bad people. But smart. Not many people know they have Philadelphia in Gaza, so I say maybe there’s also a Gaza in Philadelphia.” He went on to say that it was time for Israel to finish the war. "What's happening in Gaza is so sad. They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats,” he said, echoing claims he made during his campaign about Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating pets. This made Trump hungry, and he went back to his happy meal, pulling out a toy that had a big red button, a reference to the mythical button the president could use to launch nuclear weapons. Kitzis warned him not to touch it, and wished luck to Trump, Israel, and the entire planet.
But the US presidential race was only one of the big stories here this week, and much of the episode was devoted to savaging Netanyahu’s decision to fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant Tuesday and replace him with Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who has virtually no military experience, in the middle of a seven-front war. Gallant's firing came up even in a sketch about the assassinated terror leaders Yahya Sinwar of Hamas and Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah meeting in the afterlife, where these two laughed about Katz being defense minister. The terrorists stood among white clouds, talking to a gatekeeper/receptionist and thinking they were in heaven, and were surprised to learn they were in hell. They began to argue with the gatekeeper, telling her, “Don’t you read the newspaper, HaAretz? We’re freedom fighters!” a reference to comments made recently by HaAretz publisher Amos Schocken, who spoke of Israel, “fighting the Palestinian freedom fighters that Israel calls terrorists.” However, he clarified later that he did not mean Hamas.
As they were arguing, Sinwar’s widow, played by standup comic Orel Tsabari, showed up to bid her late husband farewell, clutching the Hermes Birkin bag that retails for $32,000 that she was seen carrying with her as she fled into the tunnels. Tsabari, famous for a recent series of prank calls in Arabic to Doha and Beirut, including one in which he pretended to be a woman, lamented that he couldn’t open the purse, saying he had left the key at home.
Iranian spies
Another comic highlight was when two of the Eretez Nehederet regulars, Shauli (Assi Cohen) and Irena (Liat Harlev), a typical Israeli couple, had a phone conversation that revealed they were Iranian spies – another true story this week that was perfect for comedy. Shauli called Irena from the airport by mistake – he meant to call Iran, but dialed Irena by accident. He told her he was about to take a plane so he could do some spying, and used the words spying and spy about ten times in the next three sentences. He and Irena had a long talk about what kind of perfume he should get her from the duty-free, another true detail from the Iranian spy-ring case, and they chatted for so long, of course, that Shauli missed his flight.
The show ended with Kitzis wishing anyone who could sleep a good night, followed by a glimpse of Bibi and Sara in bed, where Bibi had a dream that one of the hostages was talking to him. There wasn’t anything to laugh at here as she begged him to get them out, and Bibi was relieved it was only a dream. The Eretz Nehederet writers have been on target about so many things this year that it almost seems possible that the prime minister's guilty conscience is keeping him up at night.