"The Zionist movement...is the idea of creating not only a Jewish state but [doing so] at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian population.
“Zionism at its core is the idea of privileging one group of people over another.”
In the version of the clip posted by Palestine Lobby, an activist group that has called the war in Gaza a “Holocaust” and shared images comparing Benjamin Netanyahu to Hitler, it featured a cartoon of a grey rat slowing moving its tail as Buttu spoke.
The account from which Lineker shared the clip has previously claimed that Israel 'controls the US government' (Image: Instagram/@palestinelobby)[Missing Credit]
This version was subsequently shared by Lineker, who has previously been outspoken in his pro-Palestine views, on his Instagram story.
Within days of publishing the Buttu interview, Palestine Lobby also posted a clip captioned “how Israel controls the US government”, in which the “pro-Israel lobby” is labelled “the deep state”.
Lineker’s sharing of the first clip prompted a fierce backlash from Jewish viewers, many of whom pointed out that the rat was used as a dehumanising representation of Jews in Nazi propaganda.
Etan Smallman, who originally brought the screenshot to mass attention, claimed that the imagery was “not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 1930s”, echoing Lineker’s own comments from when the BBC star criticised the UK’s immigration policies under the Conservative government in 2023.
A copy of the post, shared on X by Labour Against Antisemitism’s Alex Hearn, has since been flagged by the platform’s moderators under its “hateful conduct” guidelines.
The story has been removed from Lineker’s profile but he has not issued any public statement in regard to the criticism.
However, this is not the first time Lineker has weighed in on the conflict, including lending his name to a letter calling on the BBC to reinstate the controversial Gaza: How to survive a warzone documentary in February.
The film was broadcast on BBC Two but pulled from the iPlayer after it emerged that one of its key narrators had family ties to Hamas.
Yet the former England forward has previously rubbished criticism of his remarks concerning Israel, saying: “I’m not antisemitic, I’m anti-bad people.”
The BBC declined to comment on Lineker’s individual case, but did send the JC a copy of its social media guidelines. The corporation declined to comment on whether the post in question would be considered to “bring the BBC into disrepute” under those guidelines nor on whether any disciplinary action would be taken.
The JC has contacted Gary Lineker comment.
