THERE are only about 9m Hebrew-speakers, yet Netflix, an online video service, now offers a dozen Hebrew-language shows to its subscribers. Most Hebrew-speakers will have already seen them on Israeli television, but Netflix is betting that, subtitled, they will attract viewers around the world. Like other television companies, it is excited about drama from Israel. As well as investing in television series, it is behind a new Israeli film, “The Angel”, based on the life of an Egyptian spy run by Mossad. Most of the Israeli shows on offer deal with terrorism, espionage or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is irony here. While Israeli politicians grumble that their country is unfairly portrayed by the media, its television producers are cashing in on Israel’s reputation for spymastery.

The best-known Israeli series to date is “Prisoners of War”, which lasted only two seasons on Israeli screens, but was remade as the American blockbuster “Homeland”, starring Claire Danes. In this guise it has already broadcast its sixth season, with series seven in production. “Homeland” generated much controversy, thanks to its remarkably bloodthirsty portrayal of Muslims. But it also focused interest on Israel’s television industry, which has become a growing exporter both of series and formats for production abroad. According to the Israeli Export Institute, the country’s global TV and cinema sales have quadrupled over the past decade, to $268m in 2016.

Dramas full of ruthless terrorists and brilliant-but-flawed secret agents still predominate, but local producers boast that they are now exporting other kinds of show, too. Avi Armoza, the boss of a firm that has sold over 60 Israeli television formats abroad, says his biggest hit is “Still Standing”, a general-knowledge quiz show in which unsuccessful contestants are dropped through a trapdoor in the studio floor. It has sold 5,000 episodes in 15 countries. “The Israeli market is so small,” he explains. “Producers here work much harder at adapting to the world.”

One of the industry’s proudest exports is “Yellow Peppers”, the story of a family of farmers in the Arabah Valley who struggle to come to terms with their young son’s autism. The BBC remade it as “The A Word”, set in Britain’s equally scenic Lake District.

The first Israeli series that both made lots of money and wowed critics outside Israel was “In Treatment”, which revolves around a psychologist and his patients. It was recreated from an Israeli original by HBO in 2008. It did not have any bearded terrorists in it, but it did have something else that has become a hallmark of Israeli television—a complex psychological drama played out by a few actors on a small set. This was born of necessity: modest budgets mean that Israeli shows seldom involve big casts or flashy locations.

Just as dark Scandinavian crime dramas have enthralled global audiences, Israel has come to specialise in “complex series created in frugal conditions, making the most of them,” says Einav Schiff, an Israeli TV critic. He likens this to the way that so much Israeli technology (from missiles to cyber-security software) sprang from the need to defend a small, beleaguered country cheaply. But whereas Israeli defence firms tend to make their customers feel a little safer, Israeli television shows often leave them scared out of their wits.