Over a month after I exposed John Cleese’s antisemitic X posts, the comedian has apologized.
But the apology is insufficient. And odd.
John Cleese has issued a fulsome apology to Jewish News for inadvertently sharing false and antisemitic content online – as he reiterated his pledge to make good on his pledge to perform again in Israel.
In an exclusive hour-long interview, the 86-year-old comedy icon said he was “extremely sorry” for reposting material he later discovered had been fabricated, including a false quote attributed to former Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely and another suggesting Israel “controls global finance.
“I didn’t check them properly,” he said. “I couldn’t believe some of them had been completely invented. It was a mistake.”
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The Fawlty Towers and Monty Python star admitted to being “naïve” about how easily posts can be manipulated and said he now intends to stop commenting on Israel online. “I don’t understand the internet,” he said. “People create things and don’t care that they can be disproved.”
Cleese condemned Hamas as “the nastiest of all terrorist organisations” and stood firmly by Israel’s right to defend itself, while expressing concern about some actions of the Israeli government. He also voiced concern about record levels of antisemitism in the UK, saying he was deeply saddened by reports from Jewish friends who told him how unsafe they now feel.
Cleese said he hopes to repair trust and confirmed he intends to return to Israel. “Yes – when I feel it’s safe,” he said. “And I will perform for free.”
While it seems to be true that John Cleese has stopped commenting about Israel online, he needs to apologize via the same social media account he was using to spread the lies and hate. Apologizing just via the Jewish News will reach the Jewish community, but he needs to set things straight to his huge online audience of over 5 million. And not just an apology and recanting of the posts, but also a repudiation of antisemitism.
For weeks, many people have pointed out to him the Jew-hating falsehoods he was perpetuating, yet he ignored these people (yours truly among the first of them) and continued on his merry way. Until now. So forgive me for finding this apology to be rather flaccid.
What’s more, he seems to be referring to the antisemitic posts that contained fabricated quotes. But some, like the following, didn’t.
And he claims “he was deeply saddened by reports from Jewish friends who told him how unsafe they now feel.” Yet until last week he was sharing such posts. Make it make sense! This makes about as much sense as his desire to return to Israel, a country he has been non-stop demonizing and calling “evil.”
I genuinely wish this weren’t the case, but the contradictions are piling up too fast to ignore. Cleese’s insistence that he’s horrified by antisemitism while simultaneously sharing antisemitic content, his talk of feeling Israel is “unsafe” while insisting he wants to return, and his claim that he doesn’t really understand the internet all paint a worrying picture. This isn’t just hypocrisy – it’s incoherence. And unfortunately, incoherence at his age raises uncomfortable possibilities.
If this is cognitive decline, then shame on those around him for not stepping in sooner. If it isn’t, then shame on him for thinking such a muddled, half-hearted apology would suffice.
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