"Fauda" on Netflix shows complexities of Israel's wrestling with jihadist aggression

Israeli TV panelists: Tsakhi Halevi (Fauda), Udi Segal (Mossad 101)
Michael Gordon (C.A.A.) and Danna Stern (YES TV Israel)

YES-TV's Fauda and Reshet 13's action drama television series Mossad 101 had their second season premieres at this year’s 31st Israel Film Festival in Los Angeles on November 15th and 16th. Each screening was followed by a panel discussion which featured creators, actors, and distributors of Israeli shows discussing the effects of these programs going international. 

In “Mossad 101” (“Hamidrasha” Hebrew for “The Academy”) cadets from every level of Israeli society undergo intense training to join their country’s elite, classified intelligence service, the Mossad.

Fauda, which means “chaos” in Arabic, follows a close-knit unit of Mista’arvim, the commando unit of the Israel army whose soldiers are trained in the language, dress and mannerisms of Palestinians, and whose undercover work is hailed in Israel for scuppering terror attacks and guiding military operations. The show won six Ophir Awards, including Best Drama Series, at the Israeli Academy Awards. 

CNN: Netflix says it has found the next "Homeland"


Two-years ago, Israel Film Festival organizer Meir Fenigstein introduced "Fauda" to American audiences- which led to C.A.A.'s TV agent, Adam Berkowitz, selling the subtitled action/suspense series' rights to Netflix.   This year, the Fest debuted the 2nd season opener to Israeli series "Mossad 101," which of C.A.A. TV intends to sell the format rights to internationally. 



Video playlist includes interviews with Fauda actors Lior Raz and Tsakhi Halevi- and classic Israeli-American actor/director Mike Burstyn. The Fauda actors are joined for a post-screening panel discussion moderated by Itay Hod, entertainment editor of Hollywood's The Wrap news-site, leading a discussion with Fauda co-founding producer Avi Issacaroff, actresses Laetitia Eido (Dr. Shirin), Rona-Lee Shimon (Nurit), composer Gilad ben Amram, director Rotem Shamir. The panel was introduced by Sam Grundwerg, Consul General of Israel in Los Angeles.

Iconic Israeli actor, Mike Burstyn, says that the Israeli TV and film productions are as good as any international productions- and for a fraction of the Hollywood budget. Productions like these, he says, have made greater international recognition of Israel's predicament in the past 5-years than in the previous 50-years. 

What Palestinian behavior has revealed to Israelis - and what the West might learn from it. Jerusalem Post diplomatic columnist in exclusive 2010 DemoCast video interview

Palestinian responses to Israeli acts of peace and negotiation (e.g. withdrawal from Gaza, direct peace negotiations) expose true Islamist crusade to conquer lands to be placed under Islam - which Obama strives to whitewash from Western understanding.

Herb Keinon, columnist and formerly diplomatic correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, has been at the eye of the Arab-Israeli hurricane for the past 20-years.

In this exclusive interview with DemoCast, Mr. Keinon sheds light on the revelations that peace-seeking Israelis have gleaned from Palestinian immoderation in response to Israeli concessions.




Mr. Keinon has spent years reporting with Israeli prime ministers and foreign ministers. As such, Mr. Keinon has up-close knowledge and an intimate perspective of the current confrontation and the various diplomatic attempts at solving it.

Mr. Keinon feels that the one-time Oslo Accord-embracing Israelis, who sacrificed Jewish Gaza for evidence of Palestinian intentions towards peace, have been "mugged by the reality" of emboldened Muslim aggression towards conquering all of Israel- that ceding a Palestinian state will not necessarily result in safety for Israelis.

Most Israelis know personally a victim of terror from years of terrorist attacks (from Muslims inside and outside of Israel). Being confronted by emboldened Palestinian irredentist (i.e. movement to reconquer Israel for Islamic rule) incitement has shaped the collective consciousnesses of the Israeli people. Keinon, who lives in Ma'ale Adumim (the 3rd largest city on the West Bank) believes Israelis now recognize all too well the very real dangers posed by Obama shepherding Israel to cede territory to the Palestinian front for global Islamists, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Many Israelis have evolved to recognize that they are just the preliminary targets of the Jihadist politico-cultural crusade to dominate all of the West under Islam. Will the rest of the West be willing to learn from their example and adapt to confront and defeat the Islamist 'evolutionary' crusade?

Preventing World War III

Caroline Glick writes: "Preventing World War III" in The Jerusalem Post

"The day is quickly approaching where Iran's nuclear installations come under attack, a discussion of some of the likely outcomes of such a strike seems in order. How would Iran respond? What would be the long-term effect of such a strike?" {...}

"The Israeli strike on Syria brought a harsh reality into full view. The nature of the target and subsequent reports make clear that the nuclear collaboration between Syria, Iran, North Korea and perhaps other states is close, active, deep and strategic. In an article published in last Saturday's Wall Street Journal, the ranking Republican members of the House Intelligence and Foreign Relations committees, Peter Hokstra and Ileana Ros-Lehiten - who both received classified briefings on the Israeli strike - emphasized the threat arising from this close collaboration. Their article complemented a report in Jane's Defense Weekly from last month. According to that report, Syrian and Iranian engineers were killed when a North Korean Scud-C missile they were attaching a mustard gas warhead to exploded accidentally. The explosion took place at a Syrian military depot near Aleppo on July 26.

What this is liable to mean is that even if an attack against Iran's nuclear installations inside of Iran were completely successful, there is a possibility that Iran's nuclear capabilities will not be significantly downgraded. What the Syrian operation indicates is that Iran's program may be dispersed in Syria, North Korea, and in Pakistan which transferred nuclear technologies to Iran and North Korea, (as well as Libya and Egypt). In other words, there is now a distinct possibility that Iran is not the only country that will have to be attacked to prevent Iran and its allied rogue states from acquiring nuclear weapons.

And yet, when one looks at Iran, and sees the genocidal fanaticism not merely of Ahmadinejad but of the regime as a whole, one understands that whatever the cost, Israel and all who wish to prevent a massive worldwide conflagration cannot allow Iran to become a nuclear power. Everything must be done everywhere to prevent Teheran from acquiring the wherewithal to foment a new world war and destroy the State of Israel."

"Israel won't be west's Czechoslovakia!" Israeli leader, Arye Eldad, derides U.S. resolve to protect world from apocalyptic Iran's nukes

Israel's leaders have recognized a change in US Middle East policy. Israel, facing huge weaponry sales to Arab enemies of Israel and pressure to concede further Jewish communities toward establishing an enemy Islamist state alongside its heart, Israel calls for the reasonable people of the world's sanity and unity.

Embodying the call of "Never Again," Israeli Parliamentarian, Dr. Arye Eldad, cautions that U.N. members' (including the US') abandonment to thwart Iran's nuclear weapons program is forcing Israel into a nuclear-confrontation in an exclusive video interview with DemoCast.TV.



Dr. Eldad cautions the West not to sacrifice Israel into a existential war against the Islamic world to justify an Allied retaliatory attack against Iran. If the U.S. won't pre-empt Iran from producing nukes to terrorize the world, don't complain after you force Israel to pre-empt them. Dr. Eldad emphasizes "There is no chance in the world that Israel will be willing to live under nuclear Iranian threat!"

Dr. Eldad echoes Ariel Sharon's warning, 'Israel will not be another sacrificial Czechoslovakia for the West.' That didn't appease imperialist Fascism then, neither will it now.

He calls upon Americans to urge Washington to handle Iran pre-emptively by whatever means necessary.