the resounding success of a satirical television show, a decompression chamber for a country traumatized since October 7

Since the start of the war with Hamas, a program has broken audience records on Israeli television. “Eretz Nehederet” (“A Wonderful Country”) is a caustic, comedic program that has been a Tuesday evening mainstay for more than 20 years.

Eretz Nehderet is typically the television show that brings the whole family together in the living room, with the parents wondering at each sketch if the comedians aren’t going too far and the children laughing out loud and singing along to songs that have become hits in playgrounds. In a clip released a month ago, for example, three of Hamas’ top leaders play poker and drink champagne on a carpet of banknotes in a luxury hotel suite.

Israeli politicians also take it for their rank, like Benyamin Netanyahu depicted with orange skin, coming out of a tanning booth.

Even former hostages participated in a sketch: Maya and Itay Regev, kidnapped during the techno party in Reïm then released almost two months ago, are in the back of a taxi. The driver, a recurring character in the show, asks them if they were high on ecstasy when they were captured…

A comedy show… and very political

Since the start of the war, the show has been broadcast on the internet, in English. There too, audiences have increased significantly: 80 million views on YouTube, almost ten times the Israeli population. Among the main targets: the BBC, the British news channel, and students at Columbia University in the United States: hair colored blue and pink, they wear Palestinian keffiyeh…

The authors and actors ofEretz Nehederet therefore go very far, giving the impression of laughing at everything, without limits… And yet, they refrain from criticizing the Israeli army and have not a word for the 24,000 deaths recorded in Gaza by the Ministry of Defense. Health of Hamas.