Back in the 1930s, when Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers’ Party (or Nazi Party in short) were gaining power in Germany, their focus turned towards their favourite target- the Jews. Hitler and his Nazi Party started dehumanising the Jews by comparing them to Rats, lice, cockroaches, foxes and vultures among other animals.
This propaganda against Jews in the years leading up to the second World War helped Hitler carry out the holocaust during the war, as most of the population didn’t even consider Jews humans at that point.
After Hitler’s defeat, Jews breathed a sigh of relief that antisemitism may be coming to an end, alas, how wrong were they who thought that. Even in 2025, antisemitism and Jew hatred is alive and well. We saw it in Ivy League US universities after Hamas attacked Israel and killed over 1300 people, and we are seeing it now with BBC presenters.
Gary Lineker, former England footballer and one of the highest paid BBC employee (some reports say highest), shared a video through his Instagram account where Jews were again compared to rats. BBC, the self-proclaimed neutral voice, which doesn’t even call terrorists terrorists because they have to be ‘neutral’, has no problem with its presenters calling Jews rats.
Lineker, who has played for Leicester City, Everton, Barcelona, and Tottenham, is the 4th highest goal scorer for England after Harry Kane, Wayne Rooney, and Sir Bobby Charlton, though he is more famous for taking a shit on the ground during a World Cup game in 1990. He was also asked to step down from his duties with BBC for 3 days in 2023 after his criticism of Britain’s immigration policy.
The video shared by Gary Lineker was by the ‘Palestine Lobby’ account, which featured Palestinian-Canadian lawyer Diana Buttu, and is captioned “Zionism explained in less than two minutes”. In it, Buttu describes Zionism as a system that privileges one group over another and denies Palestinians equal rights, and compared Jews to rats.
Lineker has always been a supporter of Hamas and anti-Israel, but his Jew hatred is something nobody saw coming.
Pro-Israeli groups have called for Lineker’s removal following his blatant display of antisemitism but BBC is yet to react. Notably, Lineker is anyway set to leave BBC after the 2026 Football World Cup, as announced by him.
After the outrage, Gary Lineker issued an unreserved apology for amplifying antisemitic material. He said that he would never knowingly share anything antisemitic and he had deleted the Instagram post as soon as he became aware of the issue.
Notably, even BBC’s Director General Tim Davie had expressed his anger at Lineker’s post. Davie said, “The BBC’s reputation is held by everyone and when someone makes a mistake, it costs us. I think we absolutely need people to be exemplars of the BBC’s values and follow our social media policy. Simple as that.”
Surprisingly, for a person who has a lot to say about Israel-Hamas war, he didn’t know how Jews were dehumanised before they found a home in Israel. Yeah, we believe you Gary.
