The BBC appears “wilfully blind” to anti-Semitism by failing to take action over Gary Lineker’s latest social media controversy, a former executive has said.

Lineker retweeted a pro-Palestinian campaign’s call for Israel to be barred from tournaments over “its grave violations of international law”.

After a backlash, Lineker later removed the post, with sources claiming he had believed that he was sharing a news article about Israel being banned, rather than a demand for a ban.

Danny Cohen, the corporation’s former director of television, said: “It seems very clear that Gary Lineker has breached the BBC’s impartiality guidelines, this time in relation to the specific area on which he presents for the BBC.

“The message he reposted supports the racist boycott movement against Israel and the reference to genocide is deeply offensive to the Jewish community.

“Deleting the post after it has been shared with millions of people does not solve the problem. The BBC’s senior management should act immediately.

“If they chose not to do so, they are proving again to be wilfully blind to issues of bias and anti-Semitism within the corporation.”

Asked for a response, the BBC said: “We’re not going to comment on individuals or individual social media posts, but we will always respond to issues if they are raised with us.”

It was not the Match of the Day host’s first X, formerly Twitter, post about Israel. He previously shared a video in which an academic accused Israel of committing “textbook genocide”.

The post about the Israeli football team was put out by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, and included a statement from the Palestinian Football Association.

The statement called on Fifa and the International Olympic Committee to sanction Israel, urging officials to suspend Israel’s membership and ban it from international tournaments and games “until it ends its grave violations of international law, particularly its apartheid rule and the crime of genocide it is perpetuating in Gaza”.

The BBC was also accused of failures over anti-Semitism in 2021, with its reporting of an attack on Jewish students travelling on a bus along Oxford Street.

Ofcom ruled that the broadcaster made a serious editorial misjudgment by claiming that anti-Muslim slurs were heard on the bus. The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Chief Rabbi were among those to complain about the impartiality of the BBC’s reporting.

Ofcom criticised the BBC for failing to promptly acknowledge that the claim was disputed despite knowing that the report was causing “significant distress and anxiety” to the victims of the attack and the wider Jewish community.