Season five of the wildly popular Netflix series Fauda, meaning “chaos” was released in September.
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Season → mean → September
Reality-based, Fauda chronicles the fictional adventures of a special-ops Israel Defence Forces (IDF) counter-terrorism unit called Mista’aravim, which is the Hebraization of an Arabic word meaning “they who become Arabs.”
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who → base → they
Seasons one to four ran from 2016-2023.
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Seasons → run → 2016
Season five tackles the effects of the greatest calamity to befall the Jewish state in its 80-year history — October 7.
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Season → tackle → history
Charismatic actor Lior Raz, the series’ co-creator with fellow IDF veteran and journalist Avi Issacharoff, stars as Fauda’s protagonist, Doron Kabilio.
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Raz → star → protagonist
Doron is a distinctly Israeli hero: scruffy, blunt, tenacious, he is respected for his extreme courage and competence, but his impulsivity and low tolerance for submission to authority, traits that often account for operational success, cause tension with his commanders and brothers-in-arms.
The Mista’aravim actors are Israeli Jews of Middle Eastern provenance.
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actors → respect → provenance
In the IDF, he served as a commando in Sayeret Duvdevan, the unit that mirrors what his character Doron does in Fauda.
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character → serve → Fauda
The Hamas roles are played by Arab Israelis, both Muslim and Christian.
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roles → play → Israelis
One of the characters in the Hamas team is an Arab but looks European.
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One → look → team
In Fauda, his superiors jokingly call him “the Jew.”
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superiors → call → him
Of Season five, Raz told the Jewish Chronicle, “We started to write from our trauma.
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We → tell → trauma
It was the hardest thing we ever did in our lives, because it meant dealing with a wound that’s still open for us as writers, Israelis and for me, as an actor.”
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that → do → actor
But they couldn’t wait for healing.
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they → wait → healing
They started writing when the hostages were still in the tunnels, not knowing how the war would end.
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war → start → tunnels
Five opens two years after October 7.
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Five → open → October
Grief, guilt and a gnawing hunger for revenge consume Doron and his former Mista’aravim comrades, Eli and Steve, as the cameras follow them through the breath-stopping peaks and valleys of their daring mission to foil a major Hamas plot intended to take place on Israel’s Independence Day.
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cameras → gnaw → Day
This time, it is being hatched in Marseilles.
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it → hatch → Marseilles
Episodes seven and eight are stand-alone flashbacks of the October 7 invasion in which Eli’s stepchildren are murdered, along with his wife, who is also raped, prefaced by a trigger warning.
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who → stand → warning
These 90 minutes aren’t easy viewing, but discretion was observed; the scenes only point to similar depravities that occurred that day rather than re-enacting them.
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that → observe → them
Why is Fauda so loved when Israel is so hated?
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Israel → love → ?
The viewer is never subjected to theories about Zionism, settler colonialism, the Nakba, the Resistance, the two-state solution, the machinations of Bibi Netanyahu or debates over human rights.
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viewer → subject → rights
Fauda doesn’t tell but rather shows the viewer the means by which Israel’s security is maintained, which is not always pretty, and the personal sacrifices exacted from those who maintain it.
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who → tell → it
Hamas is bent on eliminating the Jewish state and its inhabitants.
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Hamas → eliminate → state
Israel is bent on thwarting that ambition.
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Israel → thwart → ambition
What’s passed is in the past.
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passed → pass → past
It’s all here and now.
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It → ’ → ?
The stakeholders are continually locked in a thrilling cat-and-mouse game punctuated by mortal combat.
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stakeholders → lock → combat
Fauda is the opposite of a James Bond thriller, where the defeat of a single arch enemy restores order.
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defeat → restore → order
In Fauda, one fanatic Hamas leader is killed; another immediately takes his place.
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another → kill → place
There is just enough quiet time in between crises for survivors to draw breath, embrace their loved ones and say kaddish, the prayer for the dead.
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survivors → be → dead
Ideological “hate-watchers” of Fauda sneer at such simplicity, but then, no creative artefact that awards any points to Israel would please them.
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that → sneer → them
Much has been made in the Arab world, rightfully, of the fact that 60 per cent of the dialogue in Fauda is Arabic.
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cent → make → Fauda
They blend seamlessly into local Palestinian populations.
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They → blend → populations
When necessary, Doron prays convincingly alongside Muslims in mosques.
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Doron → pray → mosques
The unit enjoys warm relations and co-operation with the head of the Palestinian Preventative Security Services.
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unit → enjoy → Services
Even the most fanatic Hamas leaders are not drawn as cartoon villains, but as three-dimensional characters with intelligence and agency, who make bad choices.
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who → draw → choices
For me, one of Fauda’s great strengths is its exploration of masculine honour codes amongst these elite warriors, particularly Doron, whose self-worth is entirely bound up with securing his nation and family’s safety.
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worth → bind → safety
Paradox attends the alpha warrior male’s relations with women.
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Paradox → attend → women
On the one hand, Doron’s unusual manliness and courage is what attracts women to him.
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what → attract → him
On the other, to be effective — and stay alive — he must cultivate emotional invulnerability, focusing only on the mission, which can and does involve acts of cruelty.
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which → stay → cruelty
…and 5 more, not listed.
The Aporia
