BBC’s Best-Paid Presenter Gary Lineker Appears To Endorse “Genocide” Claim Against Israel
22.11.2023 - 12:45
/ deadline.com
Gary Lineker, the BBC‘s highest-paid presenter, has been criticized after appearing to endorse a claim that Israel is committing “textbook genocide” in Gaza.
Lineker, who was briefly suspended in March for breaking BBC social media rules, shared a video on X (formerly Twitter) in which academic Raz Segal outlined what constituted genocide.
Lineker said the video was “worth 13 minutes of anyone’s time” and many of his nearly 9M followers thanked him for sharing the clip, originally posted by The Guardian columnist Owen Jones.
Segal, professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University, told Jones: “We have both the intent and dynamics of violence on the ground [in Gaza], and because the intent is expressed so explicitly and so directly [by Israel] in such unashamed ways, and it’s continued to be expressed in this way, then I do think that what we’re seeing in front of our eyes is a textbook case of genocide.”
Segal also claimed that Hamas‘ October 7 attack on Israel “was not a crime related to the Holocaust in any way.”
Worth 13 minutes of anyone’s time. https://t.co/noj9iecVWs
Lineker is well known for expressing his views on social media, but some have contrasted his decision to share the Segal clip with his silence over Hamas’ atrocities. The Match of Day presenter did not comment on X about the Israel-Gaza conflict until November 3, when he backed people marching across the UK in support of a ceasefire.
Stephen Pollard, editor-at-large of The Jewish Chronicle, accused Lineker of showing “universe-bending ignorance”. In an op-ed for the newspaper, he wrote: “Lineker said not a word when 1,200 Jews were murdered by Hamas, when women were raped, babies burned and some 240 hostages taken.”
The BBC