Satirizing for Israel

The sheer absurdity of how debates over Israel are conducted led us down the comedy route.


Michael Isaccs
Op-Ed/JPost
13 July '10

When British comedian Peter Cook set up his satirical comedy club The Establishment in London in the early 1960s, he said it was modeled on “those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War.”

As we set up our project, No Laughing Matter, to create satirical videos on topics close to Israel’s heart, we recognized that a degree of humility and realism was in order.

It was the sheer absurdity of how debates over Israel are conducted that led us down the comedy route. We also believed you have more chance of people listening to your argument if you entertain them at the same time.



We were very influenced by the great British comedians John Bird and John Fortune, who have used a mock interview technique to satirize targets for so long they even performed at The Establishment club itself. We weren’t parodying them, we were copying their mechanic: If you interview a fictional figure representing an organization or government, and have them be brazenly honest, what they say can be very telling as well as very funny.

What would happen, we asked, if we had spokespeople for Hamas, Iran and the UN tell us what they really thought? We performed the sketches in front of a live audience, and put the videos on YouTube. (You can see them at www.nolaughingmatter.tv) Although the videos now have more than 100,000 views, the challenge of changing public perceptions about Israel and its neighbors is almost overwhelming.

THE CONDEMNATION that engulfed Israel over the Gaza flotilla is just the latest example of a systemic problem – Israel has completely lost control of the narrative. It is so tempting to get into an argument over say, who was on the Mavi Marmara, or what their intentions were, or what weapons they had, but it is missing the point. If we cannot win the debate over the nature of Hamas, or the threats Israel faces, or even why it has a right to exist, then detailed rebuttals become irrelevant. Nobody is listening.

Instead, UK lawyers are threatening to arrest Israelis on war crimes charges for serving in the IDF. Israeli diplomats and politicians are being shouted down on campus. Israeli artists and scientists are being boycotted.

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