{"id":163236,"date":"2025-12-02T00:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T00:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/163236\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T00:50:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T00:50:07","slug":"john-cleese-apologizes-for-anti-israel-posts-condemns-hamas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/163236\/","title":{"rendered":"John Cleese apologizes for anti-Israel posts, condemns Hamas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-754e42a4=\"\" data-v-e580db1b-s=\"\">British actor and comedian John Cleese, famed for \u201cMonty Python\u201d and \u201cFawlty Towers\u201d, told the London Jewish News he was \u201cextremely sorry\u201d for posting anti-Israel material online without checking it.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-754e42a4=\"\" data-v-e580db1b-s=\"\">\u201cI don\u2019t understand the internet,\u201d Cleese admitted in the interview. \u201cPeople create things and don\u2019t care that they can be disproved.\u201d  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-754e42a4=\"\" data-v-e580db1b-s=\"\">The actor \u201ccondemned Hamas as \u2018the nastiest of all terrorist organizations\u2019 and stood firmly by Israel\u2019s right to defend itself, while expressing concern about some actions of the Israeli government,\u201d the paper noted.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-754e42a4=\"\" data-v-e580db1b-s=\"\">He also voiced alarm over rising antisemitism in the UK, saying he was \u201cdeeply saddened\u201d by Jewish friends\u2019 reports of feeling unsafe.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-754e42a4=\"\" data-v-e580db1b-s=\"\">Cleese recently <a class=\"\" album=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.israelnationalnews.com\/news\/417597\" target=\"_blank\" data-v-754e42a4=\"\" data-v-e580db1b-s=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">cancelled shows in Israel<\/a>, with producers claiming that he had caved to pressure from the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-754e42a4=\"\" data-v-e580db1b-s=\"\">Many believed that Cleese had indeed succumbed to BDS pressure due to the fact that, in the days leading up to the cancellation, he had been actively reposting anti-Israel content on his X account, including videos targeting Israel and its leadership.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-754e42a4=\"\" data-v-e580db1b-s=\"\">Cleese <a class=\"\" album=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.israelnationalnews.com\/news\/417650\" target=\"_blank\" data-v-754e42a4=\"\" data-v-e580db1b-s=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">later denied<\/a> that his decision to cancel his shows in Israel had anything to do with BDS and explained that the decision was safety-related.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-754e42a4=\"\" data-v-e580db1b-s=\"\">&#8220;Contrary to the claims made by Alon Yurik Productions last night &#8211; which were subsequently reported &#8211; I am having to reschedule my shows in Israel planned for later this month following advice about safety. At 86, that is obviously all important,\u201d wrote Cleese.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-754e42a4=\"\" data-v-e580db1b-s=\"\">\u201cI will rearrange these shows as soon as it&#8217;s possible &#8211; and I would be happy to perform without receiving any fee,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-754e42a4=\"\" data-v-e580db1b-s=\"\">\u201cI am hugely fond of Israeli audiences and send my sincere apologies to all the people who bought tickets,&#8221; concluded the actor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British actor and comedian John Cleese, famed for \u201cMonty Python\u201d and \u201cFawlty Towers\u201d, told the London Jewish News&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,85,46,22858,43],"class_list":["post-163236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-hamas","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-john-cleese","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}