Hamas could never destroy Israelis’ unbreakable sense of humor
TEL AVIV — For the past six months, an Israeli army reservist named Yoni has spent his days relearning to walk after a bullet fired from a Kalashnikov rifle tore through his right hip and severed his sciatic nerve.
Today, he’s wearing a T-shirt, one of several distributed among his army buddies, with a logo that reads, “Hamas Hunting Unit.”
“Limited edition,” quips the bearded and bear-shouldered 24-year-old, one of 170 wounded IDF soldiers who’ve been medevaced to Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center since the war with Gaza began.
I’m on a media tour of Israel sponsored by the Jerusalem Press Club. The trip, with its emphasis on murder, kidnappings, and war, isn’t exactly a load of laughs — but even on the darkest days, you can always fall back on that cringy Israeli sense of humor.
Viva la cringy! Coming from dismal New York, once the global capital of cringy comedy before wokeness pooped on the party, I can’t tell you how refreshing that T-shirt is. We should celebrate taking down Hamas. Because taking down Hamas is awesome. Because they’re the bad guys.
It’s a little thing, the shirt, but it’s a microcosm of the Israeli way. They don’t mince words. They’re progressive, but not woke.
Nobody tears down hostage posters – of which there are tens of thousands in Tel Aviv alone – just as nobody rips anyone over an edgy T-shirt about taking down terrorists.
Israelis will argue on just about any matter, especially politics and religion. But on the topic of Hamas, the only disagreement among Israelis is whether to destroy them now or after the hostages come home.
At the medical center — commonly known as Ichilov Hospital for the family that founded it — the mood is weirdly jubilant.
Yoni tells us his unlikely story of survival and his fellow soldier Noam tells us his even unlikelier story of survival — and both are just thrilled to be alive.
Also jubilant is Dr. Eyal Hashavia, the head of trauma at the hospital, because he likes boasting about his unit’s perfect 170-0 no-fatality record for IDF soldiers medevaced in from Gaza with gruesome injuries — from RPGs, IEDs and regular old-fashioned bullets.
Equally boastful is he about the Israel army’s ridiculously low overall mortality rate among injured soldiers since October 7th, which is just 6.3 percent.
Compare that to a 30 percent mortality rate of injured soldiers during World War II.
Hashavia’s jubilant mood makes him mirthful. He tells an anecdote about one of his recent patients.
“I got an infantry soldier holding his gut — his shredded gut, with his hands, his feces, everything out. He was alert. They gave him an Actiq lollipop, a Fentanyl lollipop that kept him stoned. So he’s like, ‘Ahhhh,’ holding his bowels and smiling.”
The doctor’s got a cockeyed grin on his face telling this story, as if he’d just whipped out his best cocktail party gem. Why?
“This guy who we got several months ago, he’s completely healthy,” he concludes.
“He doesn’t have any kind of disability. And you know what he did when he got out of the hospital? He went to study how to get a civilian driver’s license. He was driving a tank, but he didn’t know how to drive a car.”
And we all laugh — because it’s funny!
I could get used to this place.
