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.

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