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8 | MARCH 4 • 2021
guest column
Not Funny, Very Hateful
O
n NBC’s Saturday
Night Live on Feb.
20, comedian
Michael Che “joked” that
Israel had vaccinated half of
its population
— the Jewish
half.
The point
is not wheth-
er Che or the
“joke” were
antisemitic.
The questions
are whether it is true and if
it encourages prejudice and
violence against Jews.
Critiquing Israel is fine.
Israelis and Jews do it all the
time. However, a one-off joke
about Jews keeping a vaccine
only for themselves, without
context and devoid of any
truth is not — given Jewish
history and current threats —
a critique.
And the joke did not
appear out of nowhere. The
joke would not have been
made if the audience had not
been subjected to weeks of
misinformation and unfair
allegations against Israel for
the alleged sin of not provid-
ing vaccines to Palestinians
in the West Bank and Gaza.
In short, it was the natural
outcome of a sustained cam-
paign of lies — the types of
lies that have led to injury
and death to Jews in the past.
Israel is vaccinating all its
citizens regardless of reli-
gion or ethnic or national
background. This includes
the almost 2 million Israeli
citizens who are Arab. This
is unremarkable because all
Israelis are covered equally
by Israel’s universal health
care system.
What prompted the “joke”
was undoubtedly the unfair
and unjustified charges that
Israel is not providing the
vaccine to the West Bank and
Gaza. The “joke” was neither
funny nor accurate.
On Dec. 21, the Palestinian
Authority declared that it was
not seeking vaccines from
Israel and that it was secur-
ing its own supplies. Israeli
offers to coordinate efforts
were rejected.
But once several human
Alan
Edelstein
Times of Israel
PURELY COMMENTARY
continued on page 12
SCREENSHOT, JNS
SNL “Weekend Update” anchor Michael Che