Is Gary Lineker an Anti-Semite?

Does it matter if a retired footballer posts – then deletes – an Anti-Semitic post on TikTok?

May 14, 2025

Does it matter if a retired footballer posts – then deletes – an Anti-Semitic post on TikTok?

I argue that it does as it points out the flaws in today's public discourse, namely the hypocrisy where anti-Semitic ideas are tolerated in the public space while other forms of bigotry and bias cause instant cancellation from public life.

I also feel that I am rather well positioned to analyze this case, having met Lineker, having a lot of respect for what he has done in the podcasting world, and also being an genuine Middle East expert who has lived seven years in the region in Beirut, Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, and elsewhere.

Gary Lineker has deleted an Instagram story post he shared from the group Palestine Lobby, which said: "Zionism explained in two minutes" and featured an illustration of a rat….
Barrister Simon Myerson KC, who chairs the Leeds Jewish Representative Council, posted a message to the outgoing Match of the Day presenter, external, which said: "Posting racism - bad. Deleting racist post - good. Not acknowledging error when paid enormous amount of public money pa by BBC - pathetic."
Lineker was temporarily suspended from the BBC in March 2023 after an impartiality row over comments he made criticising the then-government's new asylum policy.
In February, Lineker made headlines when he was among 500 other high-profile figures who signed an open letter urging the BBC, external to reinstate a documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone, to BBC iPlayer.
The documentary was pulled from the streaming service in February after it emerged its 13-year-old narrator was the son of a Hamas official.

Watch my hot take on what this says about the national conversation and the absence of mediating expert institutions and the hypocrisy and tragedy that allows anti-Semitism to be the last ‘socially acceptable’ prejudice which masquerades as a support for the downtrodden:

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Is Gary Lineker an Anti-Semite?

Does it matter if a retired footballer posts – then deletes – an Anti-Semitic post on TikTok?

Does it matter if a retired footballer posts – then deletes – an Anti-Semitic post on TikTok?

Here is the underlying story: Gary Lineker deletes 'Zionism' post amid criticism https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c39x0133e2wo

Watch my hot take on what this says about the national conversation and the absence of mediating expert institutions and the hypocrisy and tragedy that allows anti-Semitism to be the last ‘socially acceptable’ prejudice which masquerades as a support for the downtrodden: