“FAUDA” S5—A BIG SHIFT IN TONEOctober 2, 2026
In March 2023, I shared my thoughts after season 4 of the Israeli TV show “Fauda” (Netflix). I titled the piece, “Fauda—Violence and Humanity.” Carolyn and I just finished season 5. Things have changed.
Planning to watch season 5? Stop reading. Better, read and watch anyway. There’s much to be learned.
At the end of season 4, it appeared that an Israeli commando unit of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security organization, had been wiped out as they took out a West Bank terrorist. Producers Lior Raz, also starring as the indomitable Doron Kabila, and Avi Issacharoff, delivered a sobering message: Israel has every right to defend itself, but Palestinians are human beings. Pursuing hatred ends badly for both sides.
How could there be a season 5? This is television. Rationale: team members were badly wounded but not fatally.
Season 5 begins with those team members retired and scattered. October 7, 2023, shattered their psyches and those of all Israelis.
Two years later, one of Doron’s compatriots, Eli, is called on by a Bedouin ally, Salem, to seek revenge against Maher Zeytoun. On October 7, Maher killed Salem’s son and Eli’s wife and two children. Eli and Salem fly to Marseilles where Maher fled. Things go south. Eli calls on Doron, who responds. Things go south. They bring in their former commander, Captain Gabi Ayub, now in the private sector.
The hunt is on, but Eli, Doron and Gabi are shells of themselves. Eli is lonely and bitter. Doron, suffering from PTSD, has blacked out much of what he went through on October 7. Gabi seems to be thriving with a high-tech company but has gained a great deal of weight.
Locating Maher leads to uncovering a new plot against Israel. Gaza may be in ruins, but Hamas terrorists—and terrorists they are, as their targets reveal—would rather keep killing even though they cannot overthrow the Jewish state.
The tone has shifted from the previous four seasons. These Palestinians and their European recruits show little humanity. True, they run a community center, but only to conceal inflows of money and their planning. Moreover, Maher not only killed Elie’s wife and children, he intended to rape Elie’s 17-year-old daughter—on her ill-fated birthday. Instead, he accepted her mother’s offer to give herself to him. One would be hard-pressed to find humanity there.
We also see other acts of inhumanity that took place on October 7. And they did! During season 5’s conclusion, Doron and all Israel again deal with death—more precisely, murder.
Season 5 presents the reason so many Israelis were willing to see Gaza greatly destroyed. Obviously, Palestinians and many people around the world see October 7 and Israel’s response differently. Regrettably, neither side, nor Donald Trump and his Board of Peace, have developed a workable solution to the ongoing challenge of achieving Palestinian political independence with Israeli security.
Doron and Gabi have had enough of violence. Their former Shin Bet tasks are for younger men—and women. Yet we take away from the show that no Israeli should have to do these things. But to secure peace, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other groups sworn to destroy Israel must change their tone.
How sad if Raz and Issacharoff feel compelled to produce a season 6.
My new novel, THE DOUBLE, will be available by the end of this month.