You can laugh at anything these days...

Satirists are pouring their energies into the war effort, helping Israelis blow off steam by poking fun at their politicians and generals, and of course at Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
One TV skit shows former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon waking up from his coma thinking he's back in 1982, when he masterminded Israel's first Lebanon war. Others show the army chief as a cocky cowboy and a famous singer outstaying his welcome in a bomb shelter.
But although Israel prides itself on laughing at absolutely anything, some critics are charging that Israeli satirists are making do with cheap shots at easy targets and are pulling their punches on the real issues of the day.
In a country where public debate often reaches hysterical levels and criticism is something of a national pastime, satire has a special place: The highest-rated TV show in the country is a satirical program, "Eretz Nehederet," or "Wonderful Country," a fake news broadcast featuring a roster of popular comedians.

The show portrays the chief of staff, Dan Halutz, a former fighter pilot, as a Top Gun type in Air Force coveralls and tinted sunglasses, thoroughly enamored of his military toys. President Moshe Katzav, recently at the center of allegations of sexual harassment, appears as a svelte cad in a bathrobe on a mission to show his support for the female residents of Israel's bombarded north.
"Eretz Nehederet" has taken aim at overenthusiastic media coverage of the war, devoting one skit to a military correspondent for the country's biggest TV station. Here he enthuses about an army plan to take Beirut and then Damascus before admitting to the anchor that it's his own plan, not the army's. Then he picks up a rifle and fires a burst in the direction of Lebanon.
The undisputed star of the past three weeks, however, is Nasrallah.
The Hezbollah leader, said Muli Segev, Eretz Nehederet's executive producer, has become no less than an Israeli media icon. Segev's show portrays him as a megalomaniac who wants little more than to star on Israeli TV, loudly proclaiming his status as a "ratings magician."
(Associated Press)

-The Flipster