LBC presenter James O’Brien has apologised for praising a video circulating on social media that blames “Zionist backers” for pushing an agenda that has fueled the violent riots against Muslim communities in the UK.

During his Tuesday morning radio show on LBC in which he discussed the recent far-right anti-Muslim and anti-migrant riots, O’Brien mentioned a “lovely clip” of a man in a balaclava “saying that he’d had enough as a young Muslim and he was going to throw a brick at a church, and he turns around and tears off his balaclava and says to the camera, ‘no, of course I’m not, because that’s what they want us to do. They want it to be turned into some sort of two sides nonsense.’”

The video O’Brien refers to, posted on Monday by X account @luqmann_97, begins as an apparent attack on a church by a Muslim extremist, with the man in balaclava addressing the far-right agitators by saying to the camera: “Tommy Robinson, you’ve been targeting our mosques, now we’re going to target your church.” He then fakes the act of throwing a rock at the building behind him before removing the balaclava, as O’Brien explained during his radio show, and saying, “that’s exactly the kind of response that you’re looking for – you’re trying to push the Muslim community, you’re trying to agitate us, and we’re not going to give it to you.”

In an apology O’Brien posted on X several hours after his initial comments, he admitted that he did not watch to the end of the minute-long clip in which, less than halfway through, the speaker says: “Why is it that you’re targeting our mosques? Why is it that you’re targeting our Muslim women and our Muslim community? It’s because your Zionist backers, they’ve got a certain agenda that they’re trying to push.”

Making the money gesture with his fingers, the speaker goes on to compel British people to “wake up” and “understand the establishment are using Tommy Robinson as a little pawn to try and cause a division between the Muslim community and the rest of society.”

O’Brien reeled back on his approval of the clip, writing on X: “I referenced this clip on the show today while watching it live in the studio. I didn't watch it to the end. Obviously, the reference to 'Zionist backers' is obnoxious & anti-semitic. My apologies.”