If these days you also write in WhatsApp groups, "On the first night we had to take 50,<> Gazans down" and hear from a colleague at work, "For the Iranians, the Arabs are second-class, like a disposable cup. And a Sunni Arab is already third class" – this is because the discourse in the Israeli public, which is confined to screens, has been taken over by a foreign element: commentator Eliyahu Yossian.
Ossian is the official refresher of the war. The researcher, a graduate of Unit 8200 and winner of the Israel Defense Prize, is the X factor in our rolling panels since Black Sabbath, and he plays the role of Elijah who says to an entire country, "Good morning, Eliyahu."
While it's hard to call "official refresher" someone who expresses himself with freezing slowness and graphically illustrates how we should all start thinking, eating and drinking Middle Eastern cruelty – there is no doubt that in quite a few homes in Israel, eyes are trying to see if Yossian was invited to the panel.
In the first days after the dust was shaken from the inferno, and when it was clear that the ayatollahs in Tehran had arranged a chapter from hell in the Israeli story, experts on Iran became a sought-after commodity.
Among all the stencil commentators who spoke of a general victory, Yossian had already dropped the 50,<>-dead bomb in the studios, which Israel did not drop as a starter: "On the first night, four waves of planes had to leave. When we begin to bury our loved ones, they will bury their loved ones. It's called staying in pipety-peepty."
It's already clear that all panel producers are nagging the new Iron Sword talent just to come.
Amid the endless analyses of the North, South and how significant the assassination of the head of Khan Yunis' north-central air rocket system was, moving to the new kid in the neighborhood guarantees minutes of confinement to the screen.
He lacks clichés, and answers matter-of-factly as if he had received every question in advance. It often comes with a declaration at the beginning of the sentence about how many seconds it will take him to explain and how many clauses will be in the answer.
There is no doubt that the gap between slow speech and cruel texts fascinates us to the screen. Yossian doesn't play by the rules. He's like an alien who came down to us to speak his language, doesn't get excited about any hostel or be nice to any presenter, he takes out the flute and takes the cobras out of the basket, mesmerized by the addictive sounds: "In the Middle East, babies are burned in the name of God. You have to fight at the height of cruelty, without morality, you enter Gaza in order to take revenge, you have to have maximum bodies."
After Prime Minister Netanyahu met with the families of the abductees last night, I remembered what Yossian said when, too, on this issue we all had salt on the messages: "The Iranians see how for 200 captives and abductees you make eights in the air," and then came up with a proposal for streamlining because what will help in the solution is reducing the occupation.
"They see in the media how much volume is given to captives and abductees, and how much to attack. The Iranians see it and analyze it."
Ossian, at this point at least, is not interrupted. Both because of the lyrics and because of the melody: it's hard to argue after such a slap to a national concept with someone who dictates a new one to us, especially when you're mesmerized by a sentence like "Hassan Nasrullah CEO of Hezbollah."
Full disclosure: The writer sometimes serves as a panelist on Channel 14 and Kan 11
Wrong? We'll fix it! If you find a mistake in the article, please share with us