MPACUK has learned that the notoriously pro-Israeli Islamophobe, ‘journalist’ John Ware is waging a smear campaign against Interpal – funded by YOU as BBC license-fee payers for a future episode of Panorama!!! Our sources inform us that a certain Mr John Ware has allegedly been approaching individuals and groups, probing them for interviews and comments on Interpal http://www.interpal.org/  - a British Muslim charity which provides desperately needed humanitarian relief to our brothers and sisters in Palestine.

This is the very same John Ware who last summer produced one of the most Islamaphobic, Pro-Israeli programmes ever aired by the BBC, which resulted in over 600 complaints to the BBC (see MPACUK Alert of 22/8/05 http://www.mpacuk.org/content/view/955/39/ ). John Ware’s last anti-Muslim propaganda ‘documentary’ produced under the Panorama brand was described by the respected Guardian journalist Madeleine Bunting as part of "a campaign… being orchestrated through the media to destroy the credibility of many of the most important Muslim institutions in Britain" (Guardian, 22/8/05 - http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1553878,00.html ). Ware allegedly openly stated to a Muslim group that this is the start of ‘a new cold war.’ This is the same John Ware that received great praise from notorious Zionist Islamophobes such as Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/487

In fact John Ware is so notorious for his Islamophobia and pro-Israel bias that he was short-listed for the 2005 Islamophobia Awards http://www.ihrc.org.uk/show.php?id=1657 .

In his summer 2005 Panorama programme Ware’s pro-Israel bias was evident in his description of the conflict. We would not know from listening to him that it is the Israelis who for decades now have been illegally occupying Palestinian lands in defiance of numerous UN resolutions. He gives no indication of the imbalance in power between the two sides and the disproportionality in the numbers of casualties where since the year 2000, four Palestinians have been killed for every Israeli.

MPACUK are outraged that someone who is clearly Islamophobic and biased towards Israel, and who fails to live up to the high-quality objective journalism that we should expect from the BBC, has been chosen to produce a documentary on a Muslim Palestinian charity for this flagship BBC program. Surely a ‘journalist’ who is a renowned Zionist and Islamophobe cannot possibly live up to the Royal charter, by which the BBC are bound, which stipulates that all programme makers ensure accuracy and impartiality* in presentation of controversial subjects? How will allowing a notorious Islamophobe to pursue a witch-hunt against pro-Palestinian organisations help to fulfill the BBC’s commitment to contribute to "a more inclusive society"*? Is this what we pay our licence fee for?

It’s not too late for you to complain about the outrageous choice of such a blatantly biased presenter. Respond to the MPACUK Alert NOW! http://www.mpacuk.org/content/view/2057/34/

(*Copy of Royal Charter 1. DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL HERITAGE BROADCASTING, **BBC: Building Public Value document).

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