Good news! Fauda is back for Season 2! Here is everything you need to know about it!
For those of you who don’t know what Fauda is, here is a short summary (and seriously – watch it on Netflix! I promise a weekend full of fun.)
First aired in 2015 in Israel, Fauda (meaning “Chaos” in Arabic) stars one of its creators Lior Raz as Doron, a member of mista’arevim who portrays Israel’s Arabic-speaking counterterrorism unit and its work. The men and women are specifically trained to operate undercover in enemy territory in order to assassinate or capture accused terrorists. The show’s first season (streaming on Netflix since March) had Doron coming out of retirement to hunt down Abu Ahmad, a Hamas militant he thought he had killed years ago. The second season, returning to Israeli TV this month and Netflix in 2018, explores internal Palestinian rivalries and ISIS recruitment in the region.
A war is, by definition, messy and complex; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is beyond that—deeply layered mayhem that Fauda, a production of the tiny Israeli TV industry, has done a superb job of humanizing. “Arabs tell us it’s an Arab show, right-wingers tell us it’s a right-wing show, leftists a left-wing show,” says Lior Raz, one of Fauda’s co-creators. “We worried the reaction would be just the opposite.” Not only Fauda has helped everyone relate to at least one character on the show, it has also affected Israelis to learn more Arabic and more and more Israeli teenagers learn Arabic in high school.
Following its success in Israel, Fauda was purchased by Netflix and is aired in 190 countries around the world. Lior Raz has been touring the US talking about the making of the show and his experience during his IDF service. Some of you may recall hearing him talk at the FIDF Gala this past November, where he also told us that Netflix ordered two more original shows! one is called “Hit and run” about a CIA and a Mossad agent working together to catch one of the world’s most wanted terrorist, the other doesn’t have a name yet but it’s in the work – and when Netflix and Fauda creators are involved – who are we to worry?
Fauda Season 2 aired in Israel on December 31 for a perfect New Year’s Eve treat and brings another heavy dose of action and nail-biting tension. This season features many of the characters from the first season, including Nurit (Rona-Lee Shim’on), Naor (Tsahi Halevi), Herzel (Doron Ben-David), Eli (Yaakov Zada Daniel), Avihai (Boaz Konforty), Gaby (Itzik Cohen), Mickey (Yuval Segal), and Gali (Neta Garty). The permanent cast will be joined by new characters; among them: Firas Nassar who will star as the new villain and a member of ISIS, the enemy at the center of this season instead of Hamas. In Fauda Season 2, the main character’s past returns to haunt him as he is forced to return to the unit to fight against his new enemy, played by Nassar.
Do you want to learn more about the conflict? Improve your Hebrew and maybe catch a few phrases in Arabic? Watch Fauda on Netflix and join the fun!
Until next time…
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