The Economist magazine’s review of the “hit Israeli spy show” Fauda, “Can “Fauda” capture the truth of Israel, Gaza and October 7th?” demonstrated of media culture’s warped pro-Palestinian viewpoint.
It's unsettling to witness this unseemly eagerness to turn sympathetic eyes only on Gaza while turning away from the Israeli suffering of October 7, 2023, when thousands of Jews were raped and murdered and over 200 taken hostage, starved and beaten for over a year in the worst mass killing of Jews since the Holocaust. It was the atrocity that launched Israel's defensive war against Hamas.
The hostility of The Economist's review (unbylined, according to editorial practice) was distilled on its X feed: "In its first four seasons, “Fauda” made an effort to be fair. The Palestinian characters, like the Israelis, had griefs and grievances, families and team frictions. The fifth season is different.”
So this program's October 7 storyline was a failure of fairness to the murderers of Hamas?
Since 2015 Fauda has followed a group of Israeli commandos who venture undercover into Gaza and the West Bank….
In its first four seasons, Fauda made an effort to be fair. The Palestinian characters, like the Israelis, had griefs and grievances, families and team frictions. The plot only works because they look alike, too: the Israeli agents are mostly played by mizrahi Jews of Middle Eastern descent. “Fauda”, which means “chaos”, is a codeword used when a mission goes awry, but it seemed a forlorn judgment on the whole intractable conflict.
Yet when the massacre of Israeli civilians is the topic, lack of sympathy for the killing party is what the critic had sufficient gall to call “the narrowing of empathy.”
The fifth season is different. Two years after October 7th, a pair of bereaved fathers pursue a freelance vendetta against terrorists sheltering in Marseille. Before long Doron must go undercover again, this time in a training camp in Syria. Now, though, his adversaries are less nuanced. “We’re not human beings to you,” complains a Palestinian—who is swiftly outed as a monster. The Europeans who sympathise with his cause are drawn with equal scorn.
Failure to feel sorry for Palestinians who rejoiced over the rape and massacre of Israeli victims, even infants, is seen as a failure of empathy on the part of the show. Even on television, Israel is held to an impossible standard of caring more for Gazans then Gaza's own corrupt, murderous government does.
The critic even used the foul-smelling term “Zionist propaganda,” before dismissing the comparison as misguided.
Is this narrowing of empathy a storytelling failure, vindicating critics who see Fauda as Zionist propaganda? No, because this series is not about the rights and wrongs (or wrongs and wrongs) of the overarching struggle, any more than, say, All Quiet on the Western Front adjudicates the causes of the first world war. Instead it is a portrait of trauma.
Certainly no fairness or empathy toward Israel was to be found at The Economist. Note that the “torment” Hamas has wreaked upon its own people by starting a jihad and then pathetically pleading “genocide” is turned inside out to accuse Israel of failure to empathize with its murderous enemies.
Fauda doesn’t depict the awful war in Gaza. But if you want to understand how many Israelis have hardened their hearts to Gaza’s torment, it can help. Its popularity suggests it is doing that, notably in the Arab world: the show is top of Netflix’s chart in Lebanon and rating highly in Jordan, Qatar and other Arab countries….
The critic suggested counteracting Fauda’s objectionable attempt to garner sympathy for Israeli victims by tuning in to pro-Hamas voices as well.
….To fully grasp the entwined agonies of Israel and the Palestinians, turn to other sources and voices, including those more critical of Israeli abuses and sympathetic to Palestinian pain….
