Op Ed: Quotes are from RT post âJoke About Israelâ .. shared with thanks
âFury as SNL joke about Israel vaccinating âJewish halfâ of population comes too close to calling it an âapartheid stateâ.

A woman receives a vaccination against Covid-19 in Tel Aviv.
âThe comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) was accused of peddling hateful anti-Semitic tropes after joking that the half of Israelâs population already vaccinated against Covid-19 must be Jewish.
But was it true? ..âBy mid-January, for example, vaccines had reached 75 percent of Jewish citizens aged over 60, but just 43 percent of Arabs in the same age category, according to the Christian Science Monitor. Among the Bedouin population, the metric was as low as 20 percentâ.

So .. Not 50%.. so was Michael Che wrong in his joke and was he thus an anti-Semitic criminal to be shunned and fired from his job like some other journalists?
But wait. The Israeli statistics do not include the occupied territories, which many argue have been a âde factoâ part of Israel for a generation.
ââThe OHCHR, the UN human rights body, in January slammed Israel for keeping Palestinians in occupied territories unvaccinated against Covid-19â..
ââ ..the joke was not about Arab citizens in Israel, many defenders of the joke pointed out. Itâs about Israelâs refusal to cover people living in the West Bank and Gaza, a policy that the UN calls a violation of Israelâs obligations under the international rules of warâ

Occupation in the Time of COVID-19
âIsrael denies being such a power altogether, but in late January agreed to deliver 5,000 doses to the Palestinian Authorityâ
Okay, they allowed 5,000 doses. But according to the UN, the population in the State of Palestine was c. 4,900,000 in 2017 so not even 1% covered https://en.wikipedia.org/.._Palestinian_territories

Palestinians seek closure of West Bank crossings to curb virus
Covid 19 deaths in occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem âŠFrom Jan 3 to 17 February 2021, there have been 191,359 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 2,139 deaths.

EU lets Israel destroy West Bank schools it funded.. schools start in tents
This PR battle is continuous, but now getting worse. Because in July 2018 Israel declared itself a Jewish State by law. By just a small majority in the Knesset, 62-55 with two abstentions, but that doesnât matter . Among other provisions, the law symbolically downgraded Arabic from an official language to a language with âspecial status.â
Of course in reality Israel is a Jewish State and was set up as a Jewish homeland.
But due to the terrible massacres of Jews, homosexuals, leftists and others in the Holocaust itâs especially important to stop fascism and anti-Semitism spreading again.
Only now the âJewish Stateâ has weaponized the taboo against irrational anti Jewish sentiment to make illegal all criticism of its policies.For example the BDS campaign which is being criminalized âŠ
This, along with unconditional political and financial support from the US State, has granted it impunity from criticism, international law and UN resolutions.
![Palestinian workers from the occupied West Bank city of Hebron carry belongings as they cross Mitar checkpoint on their way to work in Israel [Abed Al Hashlamoun/EPA]](https://anarchistfederation.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/a8a3ac9475b74c7abed93895ccda8a6a_18.jpg)
Palestinian workers from the occupied West Bank city of Hebron cross Mitar checkpoint on their way to work in Israel [Abed Al Hashlamoun/EPA]
Not only that.. but under this law any crimes committed by Israel can be seen as the responsibility of all Jews, when a huge minority of Israeli citizens would oppose them.
We could make a list here of Israeli State crimes, but that would be considered an anti-Semitic crime against the âJewish Stateâ and attract retribution. Indeed criticizing any Jewish person, no matter if he or she is guilty of the worst crimes, can now attract a storm of condemnation .
Of course Israel is not the only one, you only need to go next door to the Syrian State which declares itself Arab in its Constitution, is ruled by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), and has practiced genocidal policies against its large Kurdish population and other minorities. But journalists criticizing other states is not seen as a crime.

Local virus cases in Gaza raise fears of a wider outbreak
Our guess is that Michael Che, who joked that Israel discriminates against Palestinians will see his career ruined.
âCritics, including those based in Israel, see this as yet another example of apartheid policies that the Israeli government deploys against Palestinians.
âSupporters of Israel believe that using that word to describe Israel is inherently anti-Semitic and part of a ploy to deny the Jewish state the right to exist.
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Source: Thefreeonline.wordpress.com