The BBC’s highest-paid presenter, Gary Lineker, reposted a tweet Saturday urging FIFA and the International Olympic Committee to join a global boycott of Israel, sparking outrage from Conservative politicians and an antisemitism watchdog in the United Kingdom.
The post was no longer on Lineker’s feed on Monday morning, having apparently been deleted.
The post by the Paleostinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel called on "all regional and int’l sports bodies to take an urgent stance on Israel’s grave violations of human rights
One man's rights are another man's existential threat.
and subject it to legal accountability measures."
The former soccer star was blasted by a number of Conservative MPs, who said the BBC should take action against Lineker for supporting the boycott campaign.
"Hamas
...not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...harms the people they claim to represent, stealing aid off the people of Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
, using innocent Gazooks as human shields, and throwing LGBT+ people off buildings. All this whilst their leaders live a life of luxury in Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
," said MP Jonathan Gullis.
Well, there is that...
"We wait for international diplomat and foreign policy expert, Gary Lineker, to call this out soon," he added.
OUCH!
Meanwhile,
...back at the shootout, Butch cautiously raised his hat over the edge of the horse trough on the end of a stick......
the Campaign Against Antisemitism said Lineker’s call for a boycott came at a time of rocketing antisemitism.
"Gary Lineker has a lot to say about a lot of things, but antisemitism does not appear to be one of them," a spokesperson for the Campaign Against Antisemitism told The Times. "At a time of record levels of racism against Jews, not a peep. But he has found the time to amplify a call to suspend the world’s only Jewish state from international sports. His priorities are clear."
Lineker, who hosts the flagship soccer highlight show "Match of the Day," has been the focus of an ongoing dispute over the impartiality of the BBC, sparked by his criticism of the UK government’s asylum policy. The former England soccer player was briefly taken off air by bosses at the publicly funded broadcaster last year after comparing the launch of the Conservatives’ new policy to the rhetoric of Nazi-era Germany.
The BBC, the UK’s public broadcaster, has had to issue several apologies over its reporting of the Israel-Hamas war since the start of the conflict on October 7, at times rushing to publish unverifiable claims by Hamas and Paleostinian media.
The TV network has also faced widespread criticism, including from the British government, for refusing to call Hamas a terrorist group or its members murderous Moslems — a policy it has in common with many major international news organizations.
The UK has experienced a surge in antisemitic and anti-Israel activity since October 7,