The BBC is facing calls to sack Gary Lineker rather than letting him leave on his own terms, after the football pundit shared a video on his social media claiming to “explain” Zionism, featuring an image of a rat.
The Match Of The Day Presenter posted the story clip from group Palestine Lobby which, titled “Zionism explained in less than 2 min” containing a circled illustration of the animal.
The use of the term rat in association with Jewish people has been widely recognised as antisemitic, with it being used as an insult to describe the race by Nazi Germany.
Lineker, the BBC’s highest paid broadcaster, shared the video, titled “Zionism explained in less than two minutes”, on Instagram. It was initially posted by a group called “Palestine Lobby” and features a clip with comments from Diana Buttu, a former spokesperson for the PLO.
Danny Cohen, a former Director of BBC Television, had yesterday said: ‘Gary Lineker appears to have shared content about the Jewish State which echoes Nazi propaganda. This is utterly grim.
‘The BBC’s Director General Tim Davie has a simple question to answer: does he tolerate the BBC’s flagship presenters sharing content that has historically been used as an anti-Semitic slur?’
Lineker is due to step down as Match Of The Day presenter at the end of this season but will present BBC coverage of next year’s World Cup.
A spokesperson for the Board of Deputies said: “The BBC has allowed the situation with Gary Lineker to continue for far too long. He has caused great offence with this video – particularly with his egregious use of a rat emoji to illustrate Zionists. BBC should ask him to leave now rather than allowing him to dictate his own terms.”
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In March 2023, he was suspended from the BBC after comparing the language used to launch a then-government asylum seeker policy to 1930s Germany, describing the scheme as “immeasurably cruel”.
Earlier this year, Lineker signed an open letter to the BBC, calling on it to reinstate a documentary called Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone. The programme was pulled after it emerged that a boy featured in it was the son of a Hamas official.
He told the BBC’s Amol Rajan he had the right to be able to share his opinion on issues, including Gaza.
