Gary Lineker was driven out the BBC because he opposes genocide

It's those who oppose genocide who have sacked, silenced, arrested. The world turned on its head

Gary Lineker being forced out of the BBC is a reminder of an iron rule which has prevailed since Israel began its genocide against the Palestinian people:

That the world must be turned on its head, that it’s those who oppose one of the most heinous crimes of our age who must be threatened, deplatformed, sacked, silenced, expelled, arrested and even deported – while those who support these despicable horrors are treated as respectable newspaper columnists, TV pundits, celebrities, politicians and indeed national leaders.

If you publicly oppose genocide, then you are placing your reputation, livelihood, career and even freedom at risk. You are treated as an extremist. If you support this genocide, you are treated as respectable, moderate and mainstream.

History will look back this perversion of reality with disgust, and rightly so. And history will also record that the BBC is complicit in genocide. And I’d go further than that. If the Western media had done its job, then Israel’s genocide would never have been possible. If they had just told the truth from the very start, and treated that hideous truth with the gravity it deserves, then Western governments would never have been able to get with arming Israel, with offering crucial diplomatic and political support and aid. The BBC is one of the most important media institutions on earth, and it has grotesquely failed in its reporting on Israel’s genocide. As such, the BBC has helped facilitate genocide.

Nobody for even one second believes Gary Lineker has even a particle of antisemitism in him, or indeed any form of hatred. If there is a closer approximation to “the opposite of hateful” in public life, it’s a struggle to think of who else.

And his position on Israel and Palestine hasn’t been driven by any form of political radicalism, but just a very basic sense of humanity: that you should not slaughter, maim, bomb, traumatise, impoverish, starve, torture innocent people, mostly women, children and elderly people. It is as straightforward as that. If there really is a thing as a ‘true liberal’, then Lineker is surely one of the few who qualifies.

Now we’ll go into past manufactured furores about Gary Lineker and Palestine – and those who support Israel’s genocidal onslaught have been gunning for one of the BBC’s most popular stars ever since he spoke out – but let’s discuss the current saga.

He’s been the Match of the Day host for over quarter of a century, and was due to present next season’s FA cup and the 2026 World Cup. He’s now announced he’s standing down after a coordinated campaign against him.

He shared a post, as a story on Instagram, which featured the brilliant Palestinian-Canadian lawyer Diana Buttu discussing the nature of Zionism. The BBC itself should have given a proper platform for Palestinians to discuss an ideology whose consequences has repeatedly driven them from their land, subjected them to mass murder, injury, torture, incarceration, poverty, apartheid, colonisation, and now genocide. It has failed to do so – by wanting to share Buttu’s words, Gary Lineker is doing a job the BBC should have done.

The video included an emoji of a rat. There’s no question this has antisemitic connotations when applied to Jewish people, with the Nazis referring to Jews as vermin. Lineker has already apologised for not noticing this emoji, and making it clear he’d never have shared it if he had, and that he deleted it immediately when it was brought to his attention.

In videoed statement published by Lineker today again stated “I recognise the error and upset that I caused, and reiterate how sorry I am. Stepping back now feels like the responsible course of action.”

garylineker

A post shared by @garylineker

Again, nobody reasonable thinks Lineker is antisemitic, or that he would have knowingly shared any post which could imply that Jewish people are vermin. The very idea is a nonsense, it is a lie – and it is an excuse to get rid of him.

Today, a militantly pro-Israel organisation calling itself the ‘Campaign Against Antisemitism’ which has relentlessly targeted opponents of Israel’s genocide, has issued a statement taking credit for Lineker being driven out. Their press release is headlined “Gary Lineker quits BBC, following CAA action”, stating “Gary Lineker is reportedly departing from the BBC following complaints to the broadcaster from Campaign Against Antisemitism.”

Just who are these doughty campaigners against racism? Last January, they published a tweet which read:

“Thinking of visiting Sadiq Kan’s London? This is what you can expect to see.”

The first frame of the attached video is an Islamist flag. This wasn’t so much of a dog whistle as a foghorn. These are the sorts of people treated as the authorities on racism, targeting the likes of Lineker as being the ones who are really guilty of racism.

In their clearly delighted statement, CAA state:

Gary Lineker could have been the Des Lynam of our generation. Instead, he transformed in front of the nation’s eyes into Mr Not So Nice Guy, an egotist who mistook celebrity for moral authority, a divisive figure who mistook celebrity for moral authority, a divisive figure who used his fame to inflame.

The absolute cheek of these moral disgraces. Gary Lineker is apparently Mr Not So Nice Guy because he opposes the mass slaughter of little children. He “used his fame to inflame” because he called for mass butchery to end – mass butchery which has led the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Israeli leadership, and a consensus amongst genocide scholars that Israel is committing genocide. As I say: the world turned on its head.

Their suggestion that Lineker has been transformed in front of the nation’s eyes is based on nonsense. The polling shows that the British public decisively opposed Israel’s onslaught from the very beginning, that a huge majority support an arms embargo on Israel, that they believe Israel has committed war crimes, and that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Lineker’s views are the mainstream views of the British public – while the views on Israel and Palestine of the leading lights behind the so-called Campaign Against Antisemitism are fringe opinions.

Now let’s consider past so-called controversies involving Gary Lineker and Palestine. In November 2023, he shared a clip of my interview with Raz Segal, a brilliant Israeli-American associate professor of genocide and Holocaust studies. In that clip Segal explained, based on his expertise, based on his scholarly research and understanding, why Israel’s onslaught was a “textbook genocide”. Lineker quote tweeted that clip, adding simply “Worth 13 minutes of anyone’s time.”

This then caused a furore in the British media. One example was an article in The Times newspaper, headlined ‘BBC staff’s anger after Gary Lineker shares Israel-Gaza ‘genocide’ video’. The article included the following:

The post caused dismay among BBC staff. One raised concerns that it would be “bloody awful” for any Jewish colleagues that have to work with Lineker. “It’s pretty shit for any Jew having to work with quite a few folk here right now,” they added.

This was frankly insane. Why should Gary Lineker sharing the thoughts of a Jewish Israeli-American academic specialist in genocide and Holocaust studies represent some sort of attack or threat to Jewish people? This entire narrative is based on the shameless, overt conflation of Jewish people and the State of Israel. Ever since the genocide began, pro-Israel cheerleaders haven’t even tried to pretend they believe in a demarcation between Israel, a state, and Jewish people as a whole. This is dangerous, it is irresponsible and what’s more – it is transparently antisemitic.

After this, Lineker said in an interview with Zeteo:

It's the worst thing I have seen in my lifetime. Constant images day in, day out of children losing their lives. But the minute you raise your voice against it you get accused of being a supporter of Hamas.

Indeed, anyone and everyone who speaks out about Palestine faces being smeared as a bare minimum.

He also said in that interview that “there’s a lot of heavy lobbying on people to be quiet.” Here as a hint about his predicament.

Since then, Gary Lineker has taught the BBC a basic lesson in journalism, in an interview with Amol Rajan, who is one of the presenters on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

What he did was reject the idea that impartiality means being neutral about “the mass murder of thousands of children”, arguing this is “is probably something that we should have a little opinion on.”

When Rajan said the BBC needed to be “impartial”, Lineker rightly responded it needed to be “factual”, and referred to a famous quote about journalism which says: "If someone says it's raining, and another person says it's dry, it's not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the fucking window and find out which is true."

He further noted the BBC “wasn’t impartial about Russia and Ukraine”.

And there was a crucial point here. There are those who say, well actually Lineker as a BBC employee should be neutral. Firstly, he’s a sports presenter, not a politics presenter, and the BBC’s guidelines were changed in 2023 to allow for personal views to be shared that aren’t party political.

Secondly, would a sports presenter who stated their opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine suffer this sort of outrage and these sorts of consequences? What about taking a position on the climate emergency? The point there is there is a consensus amongst climate scientists, just as there is a consensus amongst genocide scholars about Israel’s genocide.

As for the BBC’s coverage. What it has done from the start is take the fact that Hamas committed atrocities on 7^th October, but never once treat Israel’s atrocities as such. It has continually treated official Israeli claims as credible, in a way it would never dream of doing with official Russian claims, despite overwhelming evidence of Israel lying over and over again – and indeed it has often framed entire stories around Israeli claims. It has whitewashed crimes and ignored crimes altogether. It not only failed to frame its coverage around the incessant statements of genocidal and criminal intent made by Israeli leaders and officials, it often didn’t cover those statements at all. It hasn’t even tried to pretend that it treats Palestinian life as having even a fraction of the worth of Israeli life. It has failed to join the dots of what Israel is objectively doing, such as deliberate starvation. It has failed to give proper space to Palestinian voices, and when it does, it has continually put Palestinian voices in the dock, often treating Palestinian civilian voices as though they’re to be prosecuted more aggressively than official Israeli voices. It has failed to put the facts about international law at the forefront of its coverage.

We could go on. But when the BBC actually broadcast a documentary exposing the truth about the crimes being committed by Israel in Gaza, it was removed because the child narrator turned out to be the son of Hamas’ deputy agricultural minister, a technocratic position but in any case irrelevant because this was the narrator – the words weren’t written by the child in question.

They’ve now refused to broadcast a film about Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system. Basement Films, which produced it, issued a statement saying:

We are doubtful that our film investigating attacks on hospitals & medics in Gaza, produced with @BBCNews over 14 months, cleared multiple times at all levels, containing graphic footage of attacks & searing testimony of survivors of those attacks, will be released by @BBCNews

We apologise to the survivors of these attacks, those alleging torture and the families of those killed. They all doubted whether BBC News would ever tell their stories. We thought they would; they still can. We are desperate for this film to be released. Please watch this space.

As I keep saying, the world is turned on its head. The BBC allow one of their most beloved stars to be hounded out because he opposed Israel’s genocidal onslaught and some of the most grievous atrocities humans can possibly commit. At the same time, they refuse to give actual space to the reality of the horrors being inflicted by the Israeli state.

And while Lineker is deemed to be unacceptable because of his views, consider this individual. Some of you may be aware that I wrote a detailed investigative report focusing on BBC online’s coverage of Israel’s genocide, published by the brilliant Drop Site News in December 2024. I discussed meeting by BBC staff in which they raised concerns directly to Tim Davie, director general of the BBC.

Let me just read directly from the piece, in which they discuss the role of a powerful individual named Robbie Gibb – “one of five people who serve on the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee along with Director-General Tim Davie, BBC News CEO Deborah Turness, the Chairman of the Arts Council Nicholas Serota, and BBC Chair Samir Shah…

Gibb is charged with helping to define the BBC’s commitment to impartiality, and to respond to complaints about the BBC’s coverage on Israel and Palestine—but his ultra-partisan record speaks for itself. The brother of a former Conservative minister, he is a veteran of the revolving door between Britain’s worlds of media and politics. In his thirties, Gibb was the chief of staff for Conservative MP Francis Maude before becoming deputy political editor of Newsnight, the BBC’s flagship current affairs show, and, later, editor of BBC politics programs. Between 2017 and 2019, he served as director of communications for Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May, and was knighted by her upon her resignation. In 2020, Gibb also led a consortium to rescue the Jewish Chronicle from bankruptcy. In 2021, Gibb returned to the BBC, joining its board as a non-executive director. In 2022, former senior BBC journalist Emily Maitlis described Gibb as an “active agent of the Conservative party” who shaped the broadcaster’s coverage by acting “as the arbiter of BBC impartiality.” Similarly, Lewis Goodall, her colleague, said editors told him to “be careful: Robbie is watching you.”

Gibb’s deep involvement with the Jewish Chronicle continued after he took up his BBC role. In the November 2023 BBC Declaration of Personal Interests, he declared he was the 100% owner of the newspaper, before being replaced by a venture capitalist in August 2024. One former Jewish Chronicle journalist declared that, “since the change in ownership, the paper has read more like a propaganda sheet for Benjamin Netanyahu,” and that Gibb regularly appeared in the office “to check up on what stories were topping the news list and offering a view.” Since the acquisition, Jake Wallis Simons, its editor since 2021, has focused on zealously supporting Israel’s onslaught since October 2023. In one example, he tweeted a video of a 2,000-pound bomb exploding in Gaza City with the caption “Onwards to victory!,” before deleting with no apology.

In September 2024, four Jewish Chronicle columnists resigned in protest after the paper published a story that included fabricated quotes from Israeli officials, with one declaring that “too often the JC reads like a partisan, ideological instrument, its judgements political rather than journalistic.” Four Israelis, including an aide to Netanyahu, were subsequently arrested on charges of falsifying and distributing fabricated documents to the Jewish Chronicle and Germany’s largest newspaper Bild.

In September, the Muslim Council of Britain wrote a letter expressing concern with Gibb’s position on the editorial standards committee, noting his involvement with the Jewish Chronicle, its political orientation, the fact that it had been repeatedly reported to the Independent Press Standards Organisation. At that May meeting, BBC journalists had emphasized that Gibbs’s agenda was widely understood in British media circles, referring to his links to the Jewish Chronicle and noting its right-wing partisan orientation and slavish pro-Israel stance.

As I keep saying: the world is turned on its head. Gary Lineker is considered to be unacceptable as a sports presenter, but Robbie Gibb is considered as acceptable as an actually deeply influential figure in BBC news coverage.

Here’s a final message to those who have hounded Gary Lineker out of his job, who are no doubt celebrating. You have lost. You have lost the battle for public opinion in the West, which long ago was defined by revulsion at Israel’s murderous actions. You know that even former cheerleaders of Israel are publicly turning against it, as they realise the scale of the crime is impossible to defend. You know that, in time, both the media and and the government of the day will be forced to reflect the actual monstrous truth, and to act on it.

And you also know, deep down, that this crime is too depraved, too extreme, too deranged, too shameless, too unapologetic, and too documented to get away with. You know that there will be a reckoning, that those who supported this abomination will, within their lifetimes, face the consequences of their words and deeds.

And you know that the judgement of history will be devastating. All you have for comfort now are the scalps of the people you’ve deprived of careers, reputations and freedom - who history will absolve and celebrate - and the mass slaughter of Palestinians who you don’t even pretend to consider to be human beings. You are monsters, and in time, that will be the consensus - politically and indeed legally.

And that’s what matters here – the crime being committed. Apologists for Israel’s genocide think by making examples, they can frighten everybody into silence, and there’s no question that many people with power and influence refuse to speak out, not because they doubt Israel is committing a grave evil, but because they are scared their careers and reputations will suffer the consequences – and shame on those cowards.

Well, we have a responsibility to speak out. Right now Israel’s genocide has escalated to its most savage phase: Gaza was long ago reduced to rubble, and Israel has subjected the survivors to deliberate starvation after exterminating countless numbers, and every day there are more massacres of innocent people, including little children playing in the ruin, while Israeli leaders openly commit to removing every surviving Palestinian from Gaza.

Today, Bezalel Smotrich - Israel’s Minister of Finance - declared:

We are disassembling Gaza, and leaving it as piles of rubble, with total destruction [which has] no precedent globally. And the world isn't stopping us.

And Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu cooed that Smotrich had “told the truth” and “demonstrated leadership”.

That’s the not the mistakenly shared emoji of a BBC sports presenter. It’s the stated intent of Israeli leaders who have drowned Gaza in blood, and who are armed and backed by the West, including our own government.

That’s why we cannot allow ourselves to be intimidated into silence. If we live in a state which is arming and facilitating genocide, then we have a responsibility - a sacred duty - to speak out against the gravest crime imaginable. Remember: history doesn’t just damn the overt facilitators and cheerleaders of abominable crimes - but those complicit through their silence, too.