Did Labour suspend a candidate for liking a Jon Stewart joke?
Did an old Jon Stewart joke about Israel landed a candidate for British parliament in trouble? Photo by Brad Barket/Getty Images for Comedy Central
By PJ Grisar May 30, 2024
In a rare bit of international commentary, Jon Stewart filmed himself being screamed at by a throng of his correspondents when he considered weighing in on a ground invasion into Gaza. This wasn’t from his 2024 Daily Show tenure; it’s from 2014 — but the clip has staying power.
Now, that decade-old clip is having repercussions for a British politician. Sort of.
Faiza Shaheen was barred from standing as a candidate for Britain’s Labour Party for liking 14 social media posts over a decade, among them one that linked to the clip of Stewart on The Daily Show.
Stewart, seen in the clip cowering while his colleagues barrage him with talking points about how Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and how he’s a self-hating Jew, wasted no time weighing in on the controversy.
This is the dumbest thing The UK has done since electing Boris Johnson…what the actual fuck… https://t.co/n6Ekibi5is
— Jon Stewart (@jonstewart) May 30, 2024
When alerted by journalist Mehdi Hassan, Stewart dubbed it “the dumbest thing The UK has done since electing Boris Johnson.”
Labour, still scrambling to rehabilitate itself over antisemitism allegations, is very sensitive to anything that appears to be biased against Jews. But it may not be the clip itself that landed Shaheen in trouble.
The Daily Show bit has been in wide circulation on social media since the beginning of Israel’s war in Gaza for illustrating the way nuanced voices are met with slogans designed to stifle discussion. One of the posts Shaheen allegedly liked showed the clip, but included original text about the same idea: “Every time you say something even mildly critical of Israel, you’re immediately assailed by scores of hysterical people who explain to you why you’re completely wrong, how you’re biased against Israel.”
The problematic part came in the next part of the post, which says the people are “mobilized by professional organizations” to harass critics and influence politicians. Shaheen, who claims he didn’t remember liking the post, acknowledged in a BBC interview that she knows the line about organizations “plays into a trope” of Jewish control she doesn’t agree with. She apologized.
From an American perspective, a candidate liking social posts that arguably deal in antisemitic tropes, and apologizing, is quaint. Here in the U.S., our candidates make their own unambiguously antisemitic posts, double down on them when challenged, and win seats in Congress.
While Labour continues to fumble, even in the face of radically unpopular Tory prime ministers, it can at least congratulate itself for doing one thing right: bringing more exposure to one of Jon Stewart’s best bits.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
