The Israeli political satire show Eretz Nehederet, meaning "wonderful country," satirized the BBC and Western media coverage of Israel’s Operation Swords of Iron on Tuesday in a skit featuring a sympathetic mock “interview” with Yahya Sinwar – Hamas’s lead man in Gaza.
The interview begins with the actress portraying the BBC anchor announcing an exclusive interview with Sinwar “39 days after Hamas freedom fighters peacefully attacked Israel” and continuing with Sinwar singing in favor of a ceasefire.
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar׳s exclusive interview on BBC pic.twitter.com/KALi1gNWlH
— ארץ נהדרת (@Eretz_Nehederet) November 14, 2023
“The situation in Gaza is terrible… all innocent civilians are running out of town, so we are left with no protection… our hospitals, our schools, all ran out of rockets!” the Sinwar portrayer said.
“With no human shields at all! So unfair,” the mock BBC anchor follows up, as she continued to advocate for a ceasefire.
Later in the skit, the anchor and Sinwar complained about a kidnapped Israeli baby's cries heard in Sinwar’s office, with the BBC anchor claiming that the Israeli baby was “torturing him through sleep deprivation” and “occupying his house.”
“And the world does nothing about it—I really hope you get a ceasefire soon," the anchor concluded.
BBC coverage of Israel
The BBC has been among the Western media outlets that have been critical of Israel. For instance, it was one of the major global news outlets that published unverified reports that Israel had bombed the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital and killed over 500 people.
The BBC also refuses to refer to Hamas fighters as terrorists in their reporting and has yet to do so. Up until late October—two weeks after the October 7 massacre in the Gaza border communities—the BBC was still referring to them as militants.
"Laughing in the face of death"
Israel’s longest-running political satire program, Eretz Nehederet has published several viral skits since the onset of Operation Swords of Iron—the first of which was also a criticism of the BBC.
This skit was in English and featured Eretz Nehederet regulars Liat Harlev as a BBC anchor and Yuval Semmo as a BBC reporter breaking the news about the bombing of the Gaza hospital that the British media outlet blamed Israel for, immediately taking Hamas's attribution at face value.
A week later, the show produced its viral “Columbia Untisemity” skit about campus antisemitism and anti-Zionist fervor across American universities. Throughout the skit, the comedians make fun of the ignorance and apparent hypocrisy of students supporting Hamas, a registered terrorist organization that does not share the values associated with Western liberalism.
Eretz Nehederet director Muli Segev said in October that the comedy show, often called Israel's Saturday Night Live, had never missed a broadcast—even during the COVID crisis—but admitted that putting together this show was much more of a challenge than making comedy during the pandemic.
"Everyone is still in mourning; each and every one of us has lost someone, or knows someone who has. It has been the most horrific event in this nation’s history – and we have been through a lot over the years, as you know. But still, people need some kind of relief," he said. "It’s the old Jewish secret: laughing in the face of death."
Hannah Brown and Danielle Greyman-Kennard contributed to this report.