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'SNL' Lands in Hot Water With Anti-Defamation League Over Hagel Sketch

Lloyd Grove | The Daily Beast (http://www.thedailybeast.com/) | February 11, 2013

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/11/snl-lands-in-hot-water-with-anti-defamation-league-over-hagel-sketch.html (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/11/snl-lands-in-hot-water-with-anti-defamation-league-over-hagel-sketch.html)

An unaired sketch, posted online by NBC, lampoons the Defense secretary nominee's Senate grilling—and, the ADL's Abraham Foxman tells Lloyd Grove, reinforces the notion that Israel controls the government.

Saturday Night Live - Dress Rehearsal C-Span Chuck Hagel Hearings (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gynby-0kkTg#ws)

The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham H. Foxman, slammed the sketch—which wasn't part of the live show but was released online by NBC—for potentially perpetuating anti-Semitic stereotypes.

NBC and SNL offered no response on Monday to Foxman's complaint and usually don't comment on the frequent criticisms of SNL's comedy.

In the six-minute sketch, performed at SNL's dress rehearsal, Hagel (played deadpan by Jason Sudeikis is grilled mercilessly by South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (a drawling Bill Hader) about his published statement that the interests of the United States and Israel are not always identical. "Is this a typo?" Graham/Hader demands. "Are my eyes deceiving me? Does he think that our interests and those of Israel could ever be different?" And so on and so forth, as Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee fall all over themselves to prove their slavish devotion to the Jewish state.

The sketch culminates when a crotchety "Sen. John McCain" insists that Hagel answer a hypothetical question: would he agree to "go on national television and perform oral sex on a donkey" if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu determined it was vital to Israel's security? When Hagel says no, McCain declares that he can't vote to confirm him.

"[T]here inevitably will be those who say, 'Yeah, it's funny, but there's some truth to all of this,'" Foxman wrote in a letter Monday to SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels. "And for a smaller minority among those individuals, elements of the skit could play into the worst kind of ideas, even reinforcing pernicious notions of Jewish control of government in the vein of those routinely espoused by anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists and anti-Semites by suggesting that U.S. officials would even engage in public sex acts if asked to do so by Israel."

{SNIP}

It makes no difference that Lorne Michaels and many SNL writers and staffers happen to be Jewish, Foxman said: "That doesn't excuse their insensitivity." [more ... (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/11/snl-lands-in-hot-water-with-anti-defamation-league-over-hagel-sketch.html)]

Meanwhile ...

The Jewish lobby group wants the Senate to take harder look at Hagel's Israel views

Zack Colman  | The Hill (http://thehill.com/) | 16 February 2013

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/blog-summaries/283593-jewish-lobby-group-wants-senate-to-take-harder-look-at-hagels-israel-views (http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/blog-summaries/283593-jewish-lobby-group-wants-senate-to-take-harder-look-at-hagels-israel-views)

{SNIP}

American Jewish Committee (AJC) Executive Director David Harris said the former Nebraska Republican senator's "complex record and controversial statements he has made since his public service on strategic and political affairs" necessitated a closer look. [more ... (http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/blog-summaries/283593-jewish-lobby-group-wants-senate-to-take-harder-look-at-hagels-israel-views)]

It's All About Israel: Hagel Hearings Highlight Pro-Zionist Agenda

Jim Lobe | ISPS (http://www.ipsnews.net/) | February 2013

http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/02/its-all-about-israel (http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/02/its-all-about-israel)

... In fact, the degree to which Israel and the threat posed to it by Iran dominated the hearing was somewhat understated by Buzzfeed. The full transcript revealed that Israel was brought up no less than 178 times, followed closely by Iran with 171 mentions. Those numbers compared with a grand total of five mentions of China, the central focus of the Obama administration's much ballyhooed "pivot" from the Middle East to the Asia/Pacific ...


Hagel Hearings Underscore Israel-Centered US Foreign Policy

Jim Lobe | Lobe Log (http://www.lobelog.com) | 3 February 2013

http://www.lobelog.com/the-world-according-to-the-senate-armed-services-committee (http://www.lobelog.com/the-world-according-to-the-senate-armed-services-committee)

As I noted in the piece published on IPS Friday, "It's All About Israel," Israel and the presumed threat posed by Iran to its security dominated Chuck Hagel's confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) ... That the panel chose to focus almost exclusively on the challenges facing Israel, rather than the United States, speaks volumes about the influence of the Israel lobby on the U.S. Senate. It also speaks volumes about the very basic lack of seriousness or curiosity on the SASC's part about the geo-strategic issues that one would expect to be at or near the top of the Pentagon's agenda.