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.

Yes, exactly, see my post above. I think all this reductive social media slant is quite harmful.

My issue with Gary Linekar is that he wants to have his cake and eat it to.

For years, he welcomed being named the BBC's highest earning employee - it added to his negotiations, particularly with other commercial deals.

But he also didn't want to be a BBC employee when it came to following the rules/expectations of a BBC employee - when those moments came, he was proudly declaring that he was self employed. So you can't have it both ways.

Absolutely, it's the case that its only the news team who actually have to be impartial - but when you have made yourself the highest paid face of the BBC, I think you have to adhere to those rules as well.

In terms of this incident? I'll admit I haven't followed the story and don't really know a huge amount about what he's said and done this time. But thats because I'm not a fan of Linekar, and I see his face/name and switch off.

😁doing the usual read & respond. Thank you for not rtft at me.

Exactly. If the Israeli government represents all Jewish people, surely the Hamas represents all Palastinians? GL is a renound antisemite and not the most intelligent of them.

'from the river to the sea' what is actually meant by this? I did think that it meant that they want the state of Israel to be obliterated completely.

I don't agree with the attacks on hospitals etc, but the Israeli government believes they are fighting for their right to exist and they're surrounded by enemies. What is the solution?

And Hamas are pure evil, the attacks on October 7th were appalling. The kidnappings, the killings including babies, raping and mutilating young women and parading them around. Vile men.

They're pretty awful to the Palestinians themselves too, if any of them don't do as told.

That's ok! 🙂

I like him. Great pundit, witty and very knowledgeable about footy. Gonna miss him on MOTD.

Many people flourish when leaving the BBC. Andrew Marr for example actually has a humourous personality.

Good luck Gary Lineker I'm sure you will find better things to do on a Saturday night.
The BBC lost any credibility when they covered up Savile and co for decades. People knew and were ignored - young John Lydon for example.

Gary Lineker does not care if the BBC sacks him. He doesn’t need any more money-so he is in a perfect position to say whatever he likes. Like drawing attention to a genocide.

“Even if it’s true”? The point of the post was to point out that it certainly wasn’t something I was aware of. I would suggest I’m not that unusual. I can honestly say that I am disgusted by people of whatever faith who support the slaughter and cruelty in Gaza. I don’t need anyone to hide their opinions outside of work. Personally I think the world would be a better place if everyone was more direct and spoke up for those that can’t.

Nah. I think he should do EXACTLY what he thinks is right. He is not dodging the consequences.

Absolutely. I had always been a supporter of Israel, but now the things that Netanyahu is doing make me want to throw up. He is evil, and some of the people around him are too.

I submitted a formal complaint to the BBC, not that I was ever expecting them to do anything meaningful in response. Their inaction over SA and now Lineker are disgraceful. I am still ruminating over whether Lineker should be reported to the police re. (now removed) racist/provocative 'rat' social media posts. I'm undecided.

Well, given the BBC sacked Michel Roux jr for advertising potatoes, it’s hardly surprising they sacked Lineker for posting antisemitic propaganda.

I generally like Gary Lineker and am fairly close to him politically (in terms of his professed politics, not the antisemitism). But he’s been an absolute idiot here. It’s true that Israel is currently committing war crimes. It’s also true that a lot of Israel’s opponents are motivated by antisemitism. Anyone commenting publicly needs to take great care not to ally themselves with antisemites.

The rest of my post dealt with the fact that you should be aware of it as a trope, if you have any interest in avoiding being racist. And that even if you’re not, it should be clear that comparing people to rats is extremely problematic. You’re ‘disgusted’ by people who support ‘slaughter’ [this is a straw man; suggesting that everyone who supports the war does so because they want Palestinians dead]? Do you think these people should be exterminated like rats? Do you think the rat imagery is fine?

If everyone says exactly what they think (particularly when what they think = Israelis are rats) how do we trust the BBC to be impartial?

Part of Gary's difficulty, and I say this as someone who's agreed with a number of his stances in the past, is that he's combined an anti-Semitic trope with statements about silence as compliance. If you're going to tell people that not speaking about something is a problem, you're setting a very high standard of behaviour for yourself there, whatever that thing is.

For context, may we enquire about your views on Putin?

Or, JKR with the Trans debate?

I detest the self-righteous smugness of people who say this. They have designated this as the most important issue in the world but in a pluralistic democracy you don’t get to dictate what is important to other people. I’m allowed to think the war in Yemen is more important, or climate change, or something else. It’s not possible to care and advocate for everything.

It’s classic left wing totalitarianism and the reason why the left in particular are so vulnerable to groupthink.

Well, it's very easy to "draw attention to genocide". You say that it is bad. Only a few psychopaths would disagree with you. The problem is how you do this within this current conflict, and very simplistic social media slogans can be inflammatory.
On another thread someone noted that often these slogans are factually incorrect: the one about Israel occupying Gaza since 1948 is wrong, it was subject to Egyptian military rule untill 1967.

I agree. Or even how the Chinese regime treats the Muslim minority group.

What I should or shouldn’t be aware of is fairly subjective. I don’t believe I am racist. I personally would not compare people to rats not least because it isn’t a very good image to describe the ferocious slaughter of tens of thousands of innocents. Anyone who supports the bombing of Gaza is supporting the slaughter of Palestinians. They disgust me and the vast majority of people both in the uk and beyond.

People should be free (as they are in the uk) to speak up when they see wrong.

You are speaking up now. Many of us do. The problem is Lineker's privilege and status and how he chooses to speak up.
Maybe he sends money to UNICEF or whatever, or is part of a peace finding coalition, who knows. However, someone so famous and so high profile ought to be more circumspect about what they post on social media and how reductive that can be.

Yes of course it’s subjective. But it’s clear that anyone who genuinely cared about racism to any significant degree would have thought about how anti-Jewish racism manifests.

Freedom of speech is not absolute in the UK is it? We are not allowed to incite violence (that’s a criminal offence) and it’s very common for employers to place restrictions on what people can say in certain circumstances. Do you think there should be absolute free speech in all circumstances?

Also, it's important not to drive hate, not to be inflammatory.