Gary Lineker - he really had to go and a warning t against virtue signalling

High intelligence/IQ - in the strictest definition - is mostly correlated with broad knowledge.

On that basis, I would hazard a guess that GL is not ‘highly intelligent’.

What we can agree on, perhaps, is that he lacks certain elements of a high EQ.

I don’t think it matters how intelligent your are If you do something through ignorance all the brains in the world aren’t going to make you know what you don’t know. I think unlikely he intended to be antisemitic. He’s apologised and lost his job. What’s the problem with that?

Except they failed to mention the anti Semitic post that he re-posted so they only told half the story.

Sorry, what?

Please reread what the PP wrote - I responded directly to that.

He’s probably had an offer from Al Jazeera tv or an American channel and wanted to go.

You might be but the main point of this topic is not whether we personally agree or disagree with what he has said.

That may be so @Sammie666 but it's a bloody stupid thing he's done.

Unless he is genuinely anti Semitic and posted the link deliberately? I find it hard to think that of him, but maybe it's so.. Since he's so intelligent as you insist then he must have known what he was doing right?

I suppose intelligent people can still make foolish mistakes on occasion, but he hasn't got the excuse of youth and inexperience. An ignominous end to his stellar career what a shame.

There are many comments from people on this forum suggesting that GL is of low intelligence. Perhaps these are from MNs who have degrees? Lineker didn’t go to university as he was 100% focussed on becoming one of the best footballers in the world. He succeeded. He then put all his efforts into a totally different skill, becoming a leading TV sports presenter. He succeeded. I’d hazard a guess that GL is highly intelligent.

If you have agreed with your employer that your use of social media and political utterances will be curbed, you cannot break that agreement without consequences. He’s highly paid and needed to think before he acted. He didn’t and pays the price.

What’s worse, this strategy even plays into Hamas’s own narrative they’ve long framed the outcome as either victory or martyrdom. If Gaza is reduced to rubble and Israel becomes a pariah on the world stage, Hamas may well claim that as a posthumous win. Meanwhile, the blowback dead and traumatized Israeli civilians, and deepening paranoia and distrust hardly creates a safe or stable environment, especially for any Arabs living within Israel’s borders. Pro rata the death and injuries of the IDF would be equivalent to half of the US soliders killed in the Vietnam War.

Indeed. I think the World Community Kitchen-an excellent charity-has now withdrawn from Gaza.

Worth listening to The Rest is Entertainment podcast on this subject.

Gary Lineker is a convenient distraction from the real elephant in the room — Hasbara at its finest. Even Nick Ferrari on LBC has just now compared the deliberate starvation of a people in the name of war to tactics lifted straight from the Nazis’ demonic playbook. No civilised country knowingly does that period.

Again, people can speak out against the appalling actions of the Israeli state in Gaza without antisemitic dog whistling. Lineker reposted a rat emoji, a clear reference to Jews. As a public figure, he should have known much better, especially as he spouted off a while back about how the UK was becoming like the Third Reich in relation to immigration. If he knows enough about Nazi Germany to say that, he ought to also know enough about it to know what the rat symbol means.

I'm part Jewish, OH is Jewish by background (although he is secular/non religious and I'm a Quaker) but we are not pro Israel, there are a good many of us who do not support this war, and never have supported Zionist policies, but still don't feel okay about people like us being depicted as rats by a highly paid public figure at the BBC who has a great deal of social media influence. I have no issue with people speaking up about the deplorable genocide in Gaza - good for them, just leave off the antisemitism. It's not hard. Unless you're Lineker, it seems.

But he also upset thousands by posting something with the rat trope.

The IDF doesn’t represent all Israeli people any more than Hamas represents all Palestinians.

Both do have supporters within the local population, however.

Some of us were in disagreement with him on a number of fronts.

Why don’t people slate the USA - Israel is like the 51st state. If the US stepped away the Israeli army and arms would collapse.

People are not disagreeing with him posting about what is happening in Gaza, it was his use of an antisemitic trope with it.

You'd think his experience with Brass Eye would have taught him to research whatever he is mindlessly endorsing.

GL had promised his employers he would not do this. He’s always posting his views, upsetting people, then having to apologise. His employers have rules and this was a step too far. He can do what he wants as a self employed individual. As can anyone else. If your employer is trying to stay impartial, as it must because the BBC is attacked if it doesn’t, they don’t want employees doing this. So he had to go.

He’s got a successful podcast company and may well hoover up work with other broadcasters if they don’t mind him expressing views. They too might prefer he sticks to football.

I don’t think this so the argument specifically. It was using the rat trope that put this into the no go area and makes him anti semitic.

Did he know - yea he publicly told us all to ‘know our history’ of WW2 and holocaust.

Acknowledging what is happening in Gaza can exist with him also posting a rat as an ‘emoji’ on his instagram account and making him anti semitic.

And that is why he was fired. His views are his own and fine but his antisemitism is what isn’t okay.

Gary Linekar spoke for thousands who are being killed in a genocide whilst the powers to be stay silent.
Their land stolen their familes butchered in their thousands.
Starved to death whilst the world ignores.
The IDF are right now carrying out the worst atrocities yet everyone ignores.
Hamas are terrorists but they don't represent the people of palestine. The IDF do represnt Israel and are butchers and slaughters of innocent men women and children.
We need more GL's to speak out.
He is not an antisemitic.

May there be peace. May they have comfort from this god awful suffering.

Don’t be showing me England goals @sualipa 🇮🇪