UK state broadcaster BBC faces renewed pressure to fire the most highly paid ‘talent’ on its roster, former star footballer Gary Lineker, after one of Lineker’s social media accounts shared a pro-Palestine video featuring the image of a rat. Historically, the graphic, now used as an emoji, was used as an anti-Semitic slur.
The now-deleted Instagram story came from a post by the outfit ‘Palestine Lobby.’ The animal image accompanied a video featuring Canadian-Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu as she lectured Israel for its response to the October 7th Hamas pogrom.
The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism took to X, formerly Twitter, to condemn Lineker’s post:
Nothing to see here … Just Gary Lineker’s Instagram account sharing an anti-Israel video misrepresenting Zionism, complete with a rat emoji.
According to the Board of Deputies of British Jews:
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 [its] 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.
Lineker was paid £1.35 million (€1.60 million) by the BBC, largely for fronting its football coverage. A national row ensued—mildly diluted by pedantic interpretations of his freelance contract—when he compared Britain’s migration policy to ‘1930s Germany.’ Nevertheless, the door at Keir Starmer’s Downing Street residence remains open to him.
