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The mild tone suited the political climate. When "Only in Israel" ended its third season two summers ago, Ehud Barak, the Israeli prime minister at the time, was headed to Camp David, presumably to complete a peace agreement with Yasir Arafat.

After going on hiatus in the 2000-2001 television season, "Only In Israel" returned to the air in November in a far different Israel. By now, viewers learned, Limor had divorced the cabbie, moved to Ramat Aviv, the nouveau-riche suburb of Tel Aviv, and started a love affair with Anthony Zinni, President Bush's special envoy to the Middle East.

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Mr. Arafat, no longer a peace partner, resumed his pre-Oslo role in Israel as the butt of jokes. In one show, Limor read a headline from an Israeli newspaper saying, "George Bush: `I don't like Arafat."

"He's the only one," Limor said with guileless sincerity. "Everyone else loves him. What's not to love? He's handsome. He's smart. In Israel, we all die for him."

But Mr. Tal and his creative team — the producer Ruth Nissan and the writers Uri Gross and Tamar Marom — have not contented themselves with such obvious targets. Last year, the Israeli defense minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, insisted in a television interview that Israelis, far from being tense and anxious, were celebrating. "Only in Israel" replayed the sound bite, accompanied by a cheery song, against video of ambulances streaming to the scenes of terrorist attacks.

Israel's sense of standing alone against a hateful world also comes in for regular barbs. In the annual Eurovision song contest this spring, the nation's entry fared poorly, an outcome many Israelis attributed to European sympathy for the Palestinian cause. Limor led a quartet of back-up vocalists in this ditty: "In Jenin, there are no more streets/ And that is why we'll get no more points/ We should've thought about this in advance/ Why didn't we wait with stupid Operation Defensive Shield?"

When Jewish schoolchildren in America raised money to send pizza to Israeli soldiers during the operation, "Only in Israel" skewered the goodwill gesture. A routine had Aharoni, Israel's most famous television chef, delivering a pie in mid-battle. "Pizza break!" declared Mr. Tal, dressed in a helmet and uniform. "We'll continue the fighting later."

For all its fearlessness, "Only In Israel" proceeds with a certain wariness as well. After each episode is taped late Friday afternoon, Mr. Tal and Ms. Nissan maintain close contact with their network's newsroom until the show is broadcast at 9 that night. When a suicide bomber struck outside the crowded Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem on April 12, killing six and wounding dozens more, the creator and producer very nearly canceled that night's show.

Ms. Nissan and Mr. Tal ultimately decided to excise the fiercest satire and postpone the show by 15 minutes to accommodate continuing coverage of the attack, but otherwise the episode went on the air. For such occasions, "Only in Israel" broadcasts a lead-in informing viewers that "the program was taped before the last terrible events happened."

"We always think a lot about how people will react," Mr. Tal said during an interview in a restaurant next door to the studio. "You have to be very, very sensitive. This season, we're the leading show. Friday night is a big family night in Israel. And we know some people who watch the show have friends in the hospitals or dead because of the attacks. But the situation is so terrible, all you can do is try to laugh. We've had a lot of reaction. People saying: `How can you do that? People are getting killed.' But, more, we heard that people were glad to exorcize those fears."