SNL Sketch Goes Viral Amid Columbia Protests: ‘Predicted the Future’

A 2015 Saturday Night Live sketch about ISIS has gone viral after it was posted by a Rabbi who said it “predicted the future”, and commenters have linked it to the ongoing tension at Columbia University in New York City.

Classes have been canceled at the university as a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on the campus refuses to budge, despite police arresting more than 100 people on Thursday.

Pro-Israeli Rabbi Shmuel Reichman shared the spoof SNL clip on X, formerly Twitter, and it shows a student heading off to college being dropped off by her dad and getting picked up by her friends, portrayed as ISIS terrorists.

Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) has organized its “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” to call for a ceasefire in the Israel’s military campaign in the Palestinian territory, and has been camping out almost a week. CUAD describes itself as a “coalition of 100+ Columbia University student groups who see Palestine as the vanguard for collective liberation.” It also calls for Columbia University to “divest all economic and academic stakes in Israel”.

Israel’s retaliatory war has reportedly killed more than 34,000 people in Gaza. The bloodshed followed the October 7 attack by militant Palestinian Hamas forces on Israel which killed around 1,200 people and took another 250 hostage. Many hostages have been returned to Israel, some died while in Gaza and a few dozen remain in the hands of Hamas.

In the sketch, guest host Dakota Johnson plays a student being dropped off at a bus terminal to head to college for the first time by her dad (Taran Killam). She assures him not to worry about her because some friends were coming to pick her up.

A pickup truck then rolls up behind them bearing the flags of terrorist group ISIS, and men in army fatigues wielding machine guns and bazookas riding in the back.

“Looks like your ride’s here,” Killam says, adding, “you be careful.” Johnson leans down to the window and says, “dad it’s just ISIS.”

The proud dad tears up as he watches his daughter climb onto the back with the fighters.

One of the men dressed as an ISIS fighter turns toward the camera and says “Death to America.” As the clip ends, it is revealed it was a spoof ad for ISIS with the tagline, “ISIS, we’ll take it from here dad.”

ISIS emerged as a transnational threat more than a decade ago and its stated aims were to create an Islamic caliphate. While most of its bases were in Syria and Iraq, it boasted of groups across the world, but lost most of its territory by 2019.

However, it returned to the headlines last month with a deadly attack on a concert hall in Moscow, Russia that killed 145 people.

People in the comments suggested the clip, captioned by Reichman as “the moment when SNL predicted the future”, reflected life now and that the protesting students at Columbia had been radicalized.

“Thats not the future, that’s@Columbia!” wrote one person.

“Dad, it’s just Hamas,” added another.

And a third wrote: “caption should be father drops his kid off for first year at@Columbia. Sad.”

But one person defended the protestors.

“This did not happen in a vacuum. Seriously. College students are definitely capable of making their own decisions, but years ahead of that, they are capable of having in depth conversations about the big issues in society. Parents, teach your youth to think as they are developing,” they wrote.

Newsweek contacted CUAD and Reichman by email for comment.

CUAD defended its right to protest and reaffirmed its stance in a statement denying its actions were motivated by antisemitism or that its members were radicalized.

“Our members have been misidentified by a politically motivated mob, doxxed in the press, arrested by the NYPD, and locked out of their homes by the university. We have knowingly put ourselves in danger because we can no longer be complicit in Columbia funneling our tuition dollars and grant funding into companies that profit from death,” it wrote on Instagram.

“As a diverse group united by love and justice, we demand our voices be heard against the mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. We’ve been horrified each day, watching children crying over the bodies of their slain parents, families without food to eat, and doctors operating without anesthesia. Our university is complicit in this violence and this is why we protest.

“We firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry and stand vigilant against non-students attempting to disrupt the solidarity being forged among students-Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, Black, and pro-Palestinian classmates and colleagues who represent the full diversity of our country.”