Israelis take the edge off with laughter

Ben Lynfield | Christian Science Monitor

Israel's most popular television show, a spoof on newscasts called "Eretz Nehederet" (Wonderful Country) thought the government's approach of organizing protests outside The Hague courtroom to stress that Israelis are victims left much to be satirized.

By the 10th of 14 episodes, in a spoof on Sharon's stated plans to evacuate Israeli settlers, a settler family relocates from the West Bank to a Tel Aviv suburb, which it proceeds to convert into a war zone. The gun-toting father, Oz, plants mines in the garden to kill Samir, the Arab gardener, while the mother, Masada, tells an Arab supermarket delivery boy: "I have a tip for you. Don't ever come here anymore."

"At the beginning, we were harmless and didn't want to scare people," says Mr. Segev. "If you criticize the government too soon, you might be labeled leftist. We earned people's trust at the beginning and bit by bit we made the criticism stronger."

To soften a broadside against the security barrier, which Israel says is needed to thwart suicide bombers, the criticism is put in the mouth of Udi Ben-David Federbush, the show's clueless military correspondent. Wearing an Indian headdress as a costume for Israel's Purim holiday, a carnival-like celebration of the foiling of a genocidal plot against the Jews of ancient Persia, Udi listens to Mr. Mofaz describe why the barrier snakes into the West Bank and then voices identification with the Palestinians: "Who knows better than we Indians about having the white man steal your lands and put you on reservations?" The comment passes without much reaction from the live audience.