US President Donald Trump joined Eretz Nehederet’s Purim party during the show’s holiday-themed broadcast on Wednesday night in a program that gave Israelis something to laugh about in between their many trips to bomb shelters and safe rooms.
Played to perfection once again by Omer Etzion, Trump didn’t hold back his thoughts about the importance of this latest war. According to him, this is the greatest war in history, “Maybe in the history of histories, we can close the history, we can do clean history, like I do every time Melania uses my laptop.”
Asked by host Eyal Kitzis when the war will end and what will happen next, he said it might take four days or four weeks, “Something with four, maybe four-ever.”
For the first time in memory, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth put in an appearance as Eretz Nehederet outdid itself making fun of their bravado. “We fight to win, and we don’t waste time,” said Hegseth, sticking pretty close to the real-life secretary's actual style: Earlier Wednesday, he claimed at a press conference that Iran was “toast.” Eretz Nehederet poked fun at his macho persona, as he warned the women of Israel that he was married and off the market.
But even Kitzis had to hand it to them that the war had had an impressive beginning, but Trump interrupted him, saying that he didn’t like Israel’s official name for the war, which in English is Roaring Lion, and used the Hebrew name, “Shagat Ha-Ari,” saying he liked the US name better, Epic Fury. “I’m not a little Simba. We’re not in a Disney movie,” Trump said.
Hegseth, imitating the cadences of a narrator on a movie trailer, intoned, “In a world where evil rules, we say to the Ayatollah, Bye-Atollah.” A poster for the war came on screen as if it were a movie: “Epic Fury, the Revenge of Trump!” that showed Trump and Hegseth decked out like Rambo, in front of Tehran in flames and US military aircraft.
'Epic Fury 2' to come
Kitzis asked again about what would come next, and Hegseth said, “You thought it was the end, but it was just the beginning. When China and Russia join the fight…” He was joined by Trump, who said, “Epic Fury 2.” Another poster was shown, this time, “Epic Fury 2, Global Mayhem!” showing the two dressed like fighter pilots in a fighter plane, above Tehran.
When Kitzis said that there was a feeling that the war could indeed develop into a much bigger conflict, Trump and Hegseth were ready with an answer. “The world was just the beginning. But soon, aliens attack for Epic Fury 3 Galactic Firestorm!” and presented another poster, this one showing them dressed like astronauts below a spaceship shooting lasers. Kitzis said that there was something to look forward to and Trump said, “Coming soon, to a miklat [bomb shelter] near you, America! F*** yeah!”
Not to be outdone, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Mariano Edelman) showed up in a crazy AI video, riding on a lion through space, as lions rampaged through the squares of Iran. Bibi sang, “Iran is free, Israel is free,” and was joined by Defense Minister Israel Katz. Kitzis asked him why we needed another war with Iran since following the one eight months ago, the prime minister said that Israel had eliminated the Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile threat for all generations, but Bibi corrected him, saying he was referring to generations of iPhones, with a new model coming out every half year.
When asked what the goals of the new war were, Bibi said, “If the Iranian government falls, that was the goal. If we eliminate the threat of missiles, that was the goal. If after two years of war, nothing has changed, but I won the election, that was the goal.”
Ali Khamenei makes appearance
Later on in the broadcast, the late Ali Khamenei (Yaniv Biton) himself showed up for an interview with Channel 12 news anchor Yonit Levi (Alma Zack), from hell. Levi, who was dressed for Purim as the “not-Sleeping Beauty,” a reference to how she stayed on the air for about 16 straight hours on the first day of the war, interviewed him in Farsi, a language she said she had just learned, a joke about how many languages she speaks.
Khamenei told her everything in hell was lava, including lava lamps, and was joined by his friends, the former Hamas head, Yahya Sinwar (Eli Finish), and the former head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah (Yuval Semo), both of whom were also killed in Israeli strikes.
The three argued about who had screwed things up the most, and they teamed up to sing a version of the famous Kaveret song, “Nice”: “Nice, nice, it was really nice. We blew things up here, we massacred there, it was really jihad,” and the word “jihad” rhymes with the Hebrew word for “nice.” As they sang, a list of towns and cities in the north of Israel being bombed lit up on the right side of the screen.
That song was the comic highlight of a show made fun of many of the absurdities of this war, showing clips of punchy anchors stumbling over their words, and a video showing a dog relieving itself in a bomb shelter as a commentator continued to speak, oblivious, as well as very timely jokes about the confusing alert system for missile alerts. Another segment showed a news reporter waking those in shelters up to do interviews.
Khamenei came back on that end, to complain that the 72 virgins supposedly given to Islamic martyrs in heaven was fake news, but said that looking at the Israeli people, he felt a little optimism. “We haven’t lost our hope,” he said quoting a line from the Israeli national anthem, “Ha Tikva.” “It was fun with you,” he said, and added a version of the show’s catchphrase, “You have a wonderful country, for now.”