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

[mids2019]

Maybe Gary Lineker's departure acts as a warning for this not acquainted with history to go around randomly reposting pro Palestinian links though I suspect he is not the only one. In a way it is a sad demise to a career but an absolutely necessary one and a timely warning that a proportion of P Palestinian supporters are anti semites.

for to say I didn't like the Gaurdian 's take that the BBC were looking to sack Gary anyway and he just have them an excuse.

Do you think antisemitism only started with netanyahu's government? Do you know how his brother died?

Unfortunately - hasn’t it substantially increased?

No.

The IDF are following instructions as any soldiers do. And becoming increasingly violent and de sensitized to suffering, and more likely to commit war crimes the longer the conflict continues. Same as any army anywhere.

To compare this to Nazi officers unloading trains full of civilians with not a soldier or weapon amongst them, herding those people into gas chambers where they will be murdered wholesale, then doing this every day for months on end... to compare these 2 situations is to trivialize the horror of the holocaust and is intellectually dishonest.

Both are terrible.

They are not 'like'.

Some people who were already antisemitic have decided it's ok to voice it now. We've seen them, we've heard them, some of them have learned to be a bit more careful with their words after being called out. I've heard 9/11 being blamed on Israel, even on here. Social media has allowed existing prejudice to be amplified...

The are following instructions of Barbaric regime where people are being ethnic cleansed and a genocide is being carried out.
They are complicit to the genocide.
Stop trivializing the wiping out of men women and children in Gaza.
Happening right now.

It's manipulative emotional hyperbole.

Israel's ex- security advisor put out a message awhile ago telling IDF soldiers they should refuse to carry out orders that are war crimes. Why did he say that? Clearly officials in Israel are well aware that war crimes are being carried out.

Gary Linekar unfortunately did put up a post that was anti-semitic (knowingly or unknowingly) and he has now paid for it. I can't stand by while posters try to minimise or defend war crimes taking place, we should be able to call out all wrongs, not just the ones that suit us to do so.

I'm quite sure Lineker's career is not in demise. If anything he has gained kudos from showing the honour to resign when so many people do not resign for rather worse conduct. He will certainly continue to be greatly in demand for sports commenting, endorsements and the like, and his podcast company is going from strength to strength.

Please show me where I have trivialized the terrible situation in Gaza before accusing me. Otherwise you're just spitting empty slogans at me.

For the millionth time, it's possible to criticize Israel's increasingly extreme conduct of this war without mentioning Nazis.

On a very basic level, as you appear to find this situation difficult to understand: a lot of those IDF members will have known people affected by 7 October. They are fighting a very real enemy, Hamas, that started this war. That is not comparable to rounding up and slaughtering a whole race of people none of whom did absolutely anything to instigate the killing commited against them. The two are not comparable.

You can call the current Israeli actions monstrous, heinous, unforgivable, shameful, any one of a thousand words to make your point. You cannot call them Nazis.

And it's getting really fucking old.

You really think that shooting at unarmed aid workers and lying about it, and starving and killing children, are not "like"? You may need to reflect on your own values.

Prejudice always stems from ignorance.

The only way you can think the IDF are doing 'the same' as the Nazis is if you have no clear understanding at all of the sheer scale and evil of the Nazi regime. I'm going to assume it's merely ignorance on your part rather than anything more sinister.

What you're saying is recognized as antisemitic by many, many people and I appreciate this is an anonymous forum so you're much less accountable, but I'd caution you really strongly against sharing your belief that the IDF are the same as Nazis in real life.

I suspect this person has a little group of friends irl who agree with them. There's far too much of it about.

Probably? Most of my friends would fall into the more pro Palestinian camp but even they know not to call Israelis Nazis. I'm flabbergasted by how often it pops up on here.

Israel is not the same as the Nazis. Israel was invaded by its neighbour and that neighbour continues to bombard Israel with tens of thousands of missiles, it's just that Israel has an excellent defence system that stops them getting through. What exactly do you expect Israel to do? It is the victim in this situation, the same as Ukraine.

And to blame antisemitism on Israel defending itself from the aggressor is just unspeakably awful. Like it wasn't going on beforehand! In fact, there have been demos and placard-wavers claiming genocide and ethnic cleansing going on for years which obviously aren't true thankfully.

There's also the infantilisation of Palestine. We're instructed to condemn Israel the whole country but, if we're pressed really hard and we really have to, only Hamas and only grudgingly. Well it was Palestine that invaded Israel and Palestinians who celebrated in the streets.

As for Lineker - sadly, the current self-ID left has no analytical framework, it's just a knee-jerk reaction that a particular cause is deemed left-wing so has to be mindlessly supported and anything done because of that support is fine because it's done by the left-wing good guys therefore automatically good and that's where Lineker went wrong. He's probably really surprised by the backlash. If only people thought before chasing the dopamine rush of social media echo chambers.

Yeah from what I can see Lineker believes that silence is complicity, he said that and he has walked the walk.

Every single person who is in the public eye knows the risk if they speak out on Gaza, look at Ms Rachel, the awful things she has been accused of for speaking out about dying children. Lineker will have gone into this with his eyes wide open, weighed it up and decided that it was still worth speaking out and fair play to him for that. He made a mistake and he owned it. He will still have huge public support, he will still be a millionaire, Goalhanger still makes millions in profits, he will know that he didn't stay silent on ethnic cleansing and forced starvation. I'm sure he won't be crying into his cornflakes over this.

You just don’t understand that some people genuinely see it as a war and some see it as a genocide.

Putting it in capitals doesn’t change people’s opinions. If I said it’s a WAR you would consider that rather foolish & wrong I expect.

Babies are starving to death as we type because of choices made by the Israeli Government and their armed forces. It’s unjustifiable on any level. In the future will it be Netanyahu’s Israel we mention to make a point not Nazi Germany? I think it is going that way. I can’t see that either Israel or Palestine can continue as they are.

Same ... I think comparisons to Nazis only crops up so much on here because it's an anonymous forum. Which is depressing really. I haven't said anything about the war on here that I would be ashamed to say in person.

Even though my friends and I rarely talk about wars, I just know that none of them would use the term Nazis. Especially since it's already been pointed out that some people find the word upsetting & triggering.

Why do Jewish people in the UK have to say anything? Why does it trouble you? Does it occur to you that it's incredibly hard as a Jewish person to speak up either in support or against Israel for fear of being attacked? It's easy for people like Lineker to say what he wants without recognising any nuance. He has no skin in the game.

Edited to add that it's not true that they haven't and here's an example of when they have (and the fallout) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rg0xvdm8po

Why should British Jews speak out any more than anyone else about the actions of another state?

some have, some haven’t. Just like other British citizens.