UK's Labour Party Drops Support of a Muslim Candidate Because of a Jon Stewart Clip

It’s an awkward time to be a liberal Jew in America right now. The right-wing Republicans are the biggest defenders of Israel, mostly because of evangelism and because they don’t like Muslims. That doesn’t feel good. The hard left is using Zionist as a stinging insult because they don’t define the word the way that most liberal Jews in America define it (the far left defines Zionist as someone who wants to wipe out the Palestinian people; most liberal American Jews define Zionism as the right of Israel to exist alongside Palestine, and I don’t even know how the voting majority of Israelis define it anymore). We feel shame and guilt about the actions of the Netanyahu government, which most of us do not defend. Personally, I think Joe Biden has been a decent President who hasn’t gotten the credit he deserves, except that I feel guilt and shame for the way he’s handling the situation in Gaza, but I’m apparently not allowed to say that because that means I’m siding with Trump, who is obviously a far worse option.

Where Gaza is concerned, sometimes it feels like the Democratic party is demanding that we happily accept that Biden is maiming our loved ones and keep our mouths shut because Trump would straight-up murder our loved ones. And it’s true. He would! But I also know that if Biden does the right thing — at least what I consider the right thing — and stop shipping weapons to Israel because they crossed the “red line” like 93 miles back, he would definitely lose the election instead of maybe lose the election. Losing the election means we lose more of our democracy and any hope of peace in Gaza, and therefore we’re not allowed to question Biden’s decision to send missiles to Israel that Nikki Haley is writing “finish them” on. And there are still 120 hostages being held by Hamas, who is actually winning the war because they are accomplishing exactly what they want, which is using the deaths of thousands of Palestinian people to drive a wedge between Israel and America. Netanyahu is falling right into their trap because he prioritizes his own political career over the lives of 35,000 Palestinians (so far).

It’s a horrifying mess.

That’s a very long way of saying that, somehow, the Labour Party in the UK is even worse. I’m sure most of you have seen the clip from The Daily Show nine years ago where Stewart tries to explain the situation in Israel, but his anchors all keep screaming at him because that’s what it feels like to talk about Israel. It’s funny because it’s true.

A woman named Faiza Shaheen liked a tweet of that clip years ago. The Jewish Labour Movement flagged it, and the Labour Party decided against supporting her political candidacy because of it. The woman — an economist and academic — just had a baby, has spent the last few weeks knocking on doors, and learned from an email that the Labour Party was not going to back her.

And now Faiza Shaheen is being forced to defend herself over a tweet that she doesn’t even remember liking in the middle of the night many years ago. And there’s nothing wrong with the parody skit in the first place. She was also targeted over a tweet where she discussed her experiences as a Muslim woman, which the Labour Muslim Network is calling “clear islamophobia,” which is obvious. Petr says they’re trying to purge the far left, and that’s probably true because Labour probably has a better chance of winning with more mainstream members and winning means Labour can maim instead of the Tories, who murder. Great.

There’s plenty of antisemitism in the world to target. This is not it. What is going on? Why have people lost their minds? Jon Stewart, who got dragged into this, wants to know.

via Mediatite