The "Saturday Night Live" joke is the wrong issue

• Date: 01 March 2021
• Published date: 01 March 2021
• Author: Stephen M. Flatow
• Publication title: Israel National News (Israel)

Dozens of terrorists who murdered American citizens are walking free in Palestinian Authority-controlled territories. The Biden administration is preparing to send hundreds of millions of dollars to the unreformed, terror-sponsoring PA regime.

PA bulldozers are damaging Jewish historical and religious sites in Judea-Samaria and building homes in areas under Israeli control.

And the number one issue on the agenda of prominent American Jewish and Zionist organizations is an unkind joke about Israel on "Saturday Night Live" (SNL).

In the final weeks of the Trump administration, there were a number of issues on which pro-Israel groups should have spoken out. They should have pressured the outgoing Trump administration to force Jordan to hand over Sbarro bomber Ahlam Tamimi who was responsible for murdering American Malki Roth and others. They should have demanded that the departing administration release the long-buried report proving that the number of Palestinian Arab refugees is far lower than Arab propagandists claim.

They didn't undertake any protest campaigns on those urgent issues. Yet now they have been inspired to speak out because SNL comedian Michael Che made an unpleasant joke about Israel's vaccination program.

This past week, my inbox has been overflowing with press releases from Jewish organizations furiously denouncing Che's joke. I can't see the rationale for so much duplication of effort. It's as if each of these organizations felt that all the other organizations' press releases were insufficiently indignant, so each had to issue one of their own that would be even longer, or even angrier, than the others.

They want Che to publicly apologize. They want to know which SNL staff writer was responsible for writing the joke, and they want that writer fired.

I don't like unflattering jokes about Jews or Israel. I'm sure African-Americans, Latinos, and Italian-Americans don't like unflattering jokes which are made at their expense. But the nature of comedy or what passes for comedy in modern America is that you either develop a slightly thicker skin, or you change the channel.

Jewish and Zionist organizations need to...