Thursday, during an appearance on FNC’s “Fox & Friends,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted to a joke from Michael Che, the co-anchor of “Weekend Update” on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” casting aspersions on the Israeli government’s COVID-19 vaccination policy.
“Israel is reporting that they’ve vaccinated half of their population, and I’m going to guess it’s the Jewish half,” Che said during Saturday’s broadcast.
“That’s outrageous,” Netanyahu said. “That’s so outrageous. In fact, I brought vaccines, and went especially to the Arab communities, the Arab citizens of Israel, and vaccinated as many as we can. I must have gone to half a dozen Arab communities already, talked with the mayors there, brought the leaders, brought the doctors there, Arab doctors.”
“This is just outrageous,” Netanyahu continued. “It’s so false. And the interesting thing is, you know, not accidentally, many, many Arab citizens are voting for me because — not only because I brought vaccines for everyone but because I brought peace for everyone — I brought four historic peace agreements that were helped by President Trump’s peace teams. We brought four historic peace agreements in a few weeks, and that — everybody in Israel said, how? Wow, you know, who brought this?”
“And we’re with you,” he added. “So, I have now, you know, I’m the father of — my oldest boy’s called Yair, so when I go to Arab villages, you know, as a term of affection, they say “Abu Yair,” Father of Yair. Abu Yair, Abu Yair, we love you. So, we’re changing history on that, too.”
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