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.
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.
“They take the land, claim that its theirs and then they make concessions on land that doesn’t actually belong to them”, Ms Buttu states in the clip, going on to say that “the Zionist movement and Zionism on the ground is the idea of creating not only a Jewish state but at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian population. What Zionism is, is the idea of privileging and giving exclusive rights to one group of people at the expense of another group of people…there isn’t a single Zionist who’s able to say that they actually believe that Palestinians have the exact same rights as Israelis who are living in that country.”
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The rat emoji appears prominently alongside the title of the video.
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.”
Alex Hearn, co-director of Labour Against Antisemitism, said: “Gary Lineker has been sharing increasingly extreme content as his fixation has grown, and it was apparent that it was only a matter of time before he crossed the line.
“Sharing content that uses a rat to demonise the very idea of a Jewish nation state draws directly from Nazi propaganda. It is unfathomable that this is apparently “hateful conduct” on X, but acceptable conduct for the BBC.
“Lineker made ill-judged comparisons with Germany in the 1930s to further his political point of view, but now he is sharing ideas about Jews popularised in 1930’s Germany. When will enough disrepute be enough for the BBC? It’s time for Lineker to go.”
David Hirsh, academic director and CEO of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, said: “We know Gary Lineker. Nice guy. Never got a yellow card. Our hearts soared when he scored for England. Speaks out against Brexit and against racism. He’s one of us. What absurd over-reach when Jews called him an antisemite! How could he be, he’s a good guy? Now he’s sharing posts that demonise the overwhelming majority of Jews as rats.
“What’s happening here is that for most liberal Brits, being in the same tribe as Lineker is the important thing. In order to achieve that, they have to say either that this is legitimate, or this is just an understandable exaggeration or stumble: “sure, he shouldn’t have said that, but he’s a footballer not a politician, and this is just his clumsy way of siding with the victims; to accuse the nice guy is a disgraceful way of trying to change the subject. The truth is that ‘good people’ in our own political tribe are sometimes antisemitic.”
Lineker has regularly commented on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the last 18 months. Last year he shared a call for Israel to be banned from international sport, before deleting it from his social media. More recently, he criticised the BBC’s decision to remove a documentary on Gaza found to feature the son of a senior Hamas official, stating that the Corporation had “capitulated to lobbying that they get a lot”
In an interview with the New Statesman in December, Lineker stated that he was “not in the slightest bit antisemitic”, but was rather “anti-Israel government”.
Last November the BBC confirmed that Mr Lineker would be leaving the BBC’s flagship football show, Match of the Day, at the end of the Premier League season, but confirmed that he would be hosting the Corporation’s coverage of the 2026 World Cup.
He is also one of the founders of the Goalhanger podcast production and distribution company, featuring popular podcasts including The Rest is History, The Rest is Politics, Empire and The Rest is Entertainment.
The BBC has been approached for comment.
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