‫ שיחה מקומית‬- ‫ תועמלנית ונבזית‬,‫ארץ מגויסת‬ 06/11/2023 16:04

A mobilized, propagandistic and nasty

country
The popular entertainment program chose to fully enlist in the Israeli propaganda
machine, stripping Gazans of their humanity and mocking their misfortune. The main
thing is that we maintain national morale
By: Orly Noy6.11.2023

Complete dehumanization of the residents of Gaza. Screenshot from the Paliwood Studios skit on Wonderful
Country, Rainbow 12, on November 5, 2023

From the beginning of the war, Keshet 12's flagship program, "Wonderful Land", switched
to a special format under the name "Fighting Land". The explicit task of the show, which
was never a biting satire but nevertheless knew how to occasionally display flashes of
criticism, is to raise public morale. And if what raises public morale now is the complete
dehumanization of the people of Gaza, then this is what a "wonderful country" will give.

Sunday's episode began with the usual shtick: several mocking characters in the studio,
one of them, of course, commentatorEliyahu Yossian, whose heavy Iranian accent fell into
the hands of Eli Finisch, a ripe villager. Yossian was portrayed as a delusional and
ephemeral moron, who often uses a word he has trouble pronouncing, "terminology,"
and flattens his doctrine about the hummus and sushi war.

All Eyal Kitsis, the moderator representing the voice of reason around the table, had to

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say in response to Yossian's calls to commit war crimes in Gaza was that his remarks were
damaging Israeli propaganda around the world. "If you think about hasbara, you're living
in a movie," Finisch-Yossian replies with a surprisingly poignant answer.

But the main course of the show comes later, after a few minutes of flattery to Danny
Kushmero and a predictable and banal skit in which a few junior ministers sit around a
table full of burekas and squabble over which ministry should cut war costs.

"While the IDF is striking Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the battle for public opinion is raging on
social media. The Palestinians post many videos about attacks on civilians, but their
credibility is questionable mainly because the same actor appears in almost all of them,"
Kitsis refers to one of the nasty hate skits seen not only in "A Wonderful Land," but quite
possibly on Israeli television in general.

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‫שם מלא‬  ‫כתובת האיימיל‬

The sketch, which mocks videos uploaded by Palestinians from devastated and
devastated Gaza, opens with a dramatically dubbed image: "Paliwood Studios is proud to
present." The framing is clear: the pictures coming from Gaza are staged and false. To
validate the claim, Eli Finisch plays all the characters we'll see in the next few minutes:
"Assi Gaza," known as "the No. 1 influencer on the Strip"; an injured Palestinian; the
mother of the wounded Palestinian; A Palestinian journalist reporting from the field, and
even Bella Hadid.

The skit begins with "Assi Gaza", a referenceto the viral video from Gaza, which, while
bragging about the missiles Hamas launches at Israel, was hit by Israeli fire. In the next
picture, he is lying in a hospital bed crying, "I'm dead, I was shot at by a plane." When he
says through tears, "I'm all blood," and realizes that there isn't a drop of blood on him, the
director standing next to him hands him a bottle of ketchup and orders the scene to be
re-filmed. Then, our imaginary wounded man cries that "the tropical infusion has run out
of water," and then comes his mother, also played by Finish, whose crying is also staged
and re-recorded. In the next scene, Finisch plays a Gazan standing among rubble weeping
over his fate, and behind him sits a man launching rockets. The footage is re-filmed.

In the next scene, a row of bodies are covered with plastic sheeting, one of which, yes, is
Finish again, sneezes and apologizes, and again – the scene is re-filmed. Afterwards, a

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man wearing a green mask cries "The Zionists are throwing chemical bombs at us, I'm all
green, where is the world?" The skit ends with a return to the row of bodies, from which
the imaginary killer Finisch peeks again, and back to the studio. The audience, some of
them evacuated residents from the south, applauds with satisfaction, and now we are
moving on to another skit that is all childish and stupid lashing out at the "anti-Semitic
left" in American universities.

According to "Wonderful Country," it's all fake. Palestinians wait at al-Najar Hospital, in the southern Gaza
Strip, to receive the bodies of loved ones killed in an Israeli bombing on November 6, 2023 (Photo: Abd
Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

Thus, in the midst of a massacre the likes of which the deathly Gaza Strip has never
known, which, according toan Israeli security source, has already claimed the lives of
20,000 people, "most of them terrorists" (in contrast, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in
Gazareports9,770 dead, 67% of them women and children); When the images of absolute,
unimaginable horror emanating from Gaza sweep the social networks and the global
media; A "wonderful country" chooses to say to the Israeli public: Everything is fake.

There are not thousands of children in Gaza whose bodies are mutilated by bombings,
there are no mothers collapsing on the bodies of their children, there are not many
thousands of innocent civilians killed, there are no hospitals shelled without medicines
and equipment, there is no shortage of food, water and fuel, there are not over a million
displaced people, there is no destruction, there is no destruction. And Israel has never
usedphosphorus bombs there. No. It's all fake. Keep morale, guys. The Palestinians,
according to "Wonderful Land," are pathological and stupid liars who can't even properly

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stage their deaths. Apart from contempt and ridicule, they deserve no emotion.

Fascism doesn't grow in a day

Since the beginning of the war, the only message that the vast majority of the Israeli
media has conveyed to the public is Israel's absolute righteousness, along with full
cooperation with filtering and concealing information that could undermine absolute
belief in the justness of the war. They don't broadcast the horrific images from Gaza,
which you see all over the world; do not broadcast Nasrallah's speech so as not to help
enemy propaganda"; They don't even broadcast the video of the Israeli abductees from
their place of captivity, as if the Israelis have not yet discovered the innovative invention
called the Internet. At the same time, the Knesset is promotinga billaccording to which the
consumption of "propaganda content" will be considered a criminal offense, so that God
forbid we will not receive the information that Big Brother prevents us from other
sources.

Fascism does not grow in a day. It's not something that suddenly appears after an
unsuccessful election campaign. Fascism is an entire culture, based on a long process in
which a society chooses "national resilience" over criticism, the calming lie over the
painful truth, national morale over soul-searching. A culture of fascism is not created by
rotten leadership, but by all those individuals who enlist in the machine of silencing,
concealing, distorting and dehumanizing the other in the name of unity.

If they really wanted to contribute something meaningful to the public debate, the
members of "A Wonderful Land" could, for example, dedicate their plan to the fate of the
more than 200 abductees still held by Hamas, while the cries of their families, demanding
their release, disappear in the din of war and the joy of revenge. Instead, a "wonderful
country" chose to fully enlist in the Israeli propaganda machine, shockingly stripping
Gazans of their humanity. After all, if the Israeli public ponders, God forbid, even for a
moment the possibility that there are people on the other side, how can we continue to
slaughter them and their children and feel so right? And if we doubt our righteousness,
what will happen to national morale then?

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