Instead of a Documentary on the Bombing of Every Hospital &University in Gaza the BBC Employed Islamaphobe John Ware as its Witchfinder General
You might think that at a time of genocide in Gaza Panorama might devote a programme to exposing Israeli lies about October 7 or how ethnic cleansing, not defeating Hamas, is the main reason for Israel’s Nazi-style blitzkrieg. Not a bit of it.
Today Panorama will give a helping hand to Israel’s killers by ‘exposing’ how British Muslims support Hamas. All with the aid of its favourite Islamaphobe John Ware.
In July 2019, shortly before the General Election Panorama broadcast Is Labour Anti-Semitic? It didn’t need the question mark since it had already made up its mind. It was a hatchet job on the Corbyn left and who better to front it than Ware?
Ella Rose was nominated for an Oscar for her starring role as John Ware’s fake victim of antisemitism
The program attracted over 2,000 complaints yet Ofcom refused to investigate it. The British Establishment was determined to run with the ‘labour anti-Semitism’ narrative and it brooked no opposition.
If ever there was a reporter unfit to present a documentary on alleged racism in the Labour Party then it is Ware.
The programme failed to explain that the Jews interviewed all happened to be members/officers of the Zionist Jewish Labour Movement. It didn’t even give their names. Not one anti-Zionist Jew or member of Jewish Voice for Labour was interviewed.
On Monday Panorama will broadcast Hamas’s Secret Financial Empires by John Ware and producer Leo Telling. It attacks British Palestinians for funding Hamas. It relies on Israeli intelligence sources and is will be about as reliable as the Israeli allegations that Gaza’s hospitals were Hamas military bases.
Asa Winstanley of Electronic Intifada documents how:
As “evidence” of such “support” for “terror,” the producer cited four posts to X (formerly Twitter) by Altikriti, where he called into question some of Israel’s most high-profile atrocity propaganda about the Palestinian military assault on 7 October.
These Israeli narratives have been widely discredited and called into question across the world.
While the producer conceded that “there is currently no evidence (at least, of which we are aware) that 40 babies had been beheaded,” he claimed to have “gathered evidence” of other crimes.
Telling’s equivocal wording comes despite the fact that the “40 babies” claim has been definitively proven to be a total fabrication, and not simply an unproven claim.
Just one baby, Mila Cohen (10 months) was killed, by a stray bullet, 36 children in total. Compare that to the 15,000+ Palestinian children who’ve been murdered including 4 babies who were left to die by the Israeli military in Al Shifa when the ventilators were turned off. Their bodies were left for wild animals to devour. See CNN’s Infants found dead and decomposing in evacuated hospital ICU in Gaza. Here’s what we know.
Of course every child is one too many but whereas Hamas went out of their way not to kill children there is evidence that Israeli is deliberately rounding up children like mice and then executing them.
It seems that the hatchet job that Panorama is intending will be as factually inaccurate as all Ware’s previous programmes. Winstanley describes how
Putting the program’s allegations to Altikriti, the producer described one of the campaigner’s tweets as a response to “a post by UK women.”
Yet the tweet Telling cites was actually a response to a pro-Israel lobby group, We Believe in Israel, which was spreading the Israeli propaganda about rape. The group is actually run by a man, Luke Akehurst, and the post in question does not quote women.
The programme is going to broadcast how prominent British Palestinians like Anas Altikriti are supporting Hamas. Proof of this is their doubting of Israeli atrocity propaganda such as the story about 40 beheaded babies.
The ‘evidence’ for Ware’s accusations in the program is Israel’s Secret Police Shin Bet who are notorious for routinely using torture and abusing Palestinian children.
During Is Labour Anti-SemiticWare described the interview by Labour Party staff member Ben Westerman of a Jewish member Helen Marks. It was witnessed by another Jewish member Rica Bird. A tape recording proved that Westerman lied when he alleged that Rica had asked if he was from Israel. She had asked what branch of the Labour Party he was from.
After having denied that Westerman lied for so long Ware finally admitted, in the Zionist journal Fathom (where else?) that ‘it cannot be ruled out that Westerman’s recollection has erred’ and that he ‘misremembered’.
This came after the BBC finally admitted that the interview with Izzy Lenga, a JLM officer, had been cut so as to suggest holocaust denial was a feature of Labour Party debate rather than her alleged experiences at University. However the admission was tucked away in Corrections & Clarifications rather than being broadcast.
The programme had two ‘expert witnesses’ Dave Rich from the Zionist Community Security Trust and the second witness was Professor Alan Johnson. Johnson is not Jewish and he has no special knowledge of anti-Semitism. He is Editor of Fathom, the journal of BICOM, the main Israeli propaganda organisation in Britain. He is a Zionist. Why was this information concealed?
The only conclusion is that Ware deliberately set out to mislead viewers. By not providing Johnson’s political and professional background Ware paraded Johnson as a neutral expert when he was nothing of the sort?
It is a testament to how dishonest Is Labour Anti-Semitic was that over 4 years later John Ware is still forced to defend it.
Arzu Merali’s documented how Ware’s 2005 “A Question of Leadership” attracted over 600 complaints in just its first week protesting about its hostile and one-sided nature.
John Ware – the BBC’s Go to Islamaphobe
The Muslim Council of Britain described the programme thus:
John Ware’s team have made a deeply unfair programme using deliberately garbled quotes in an attempt to malign the Muslim Council of Britain and with the barely concealed goal of drawing British Muslims away from being inspired in their political beliefs and actions by the faith of Islam. It is unfortunate that just when Britain’s 1.6 million Muslims are beginning to make progress in terms of their political participation in the mainstream, there are those who are purposefully trying to sabotage that process,’said Sir Iqbal Sacranie, Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain.
It seems that to qualify as so-called ‘moderates’ Muslims are required to remain silent about Israeli crimes in Palestine, otherwise they are automatically labelled as ‘extremists’.
And that is the gist of it. Ware’s agenda is to defend the Israeli state at all costs. Arzu described Ware as ‘someone who has made a career out of exceptionalising Muslims.’
One senior ex-Panorama journalist described the programme as
the most disgusting Panorama that I have ever seen. The presenter was acting like a prosecuting attorney, not a journalist.
The Guardian’s Madeleine Bunting called the documentary, which dubbed all Muslims as ‘extremist’, as an example of the ‘McCarthyite absurd’. Bunting described Ware’s journalistic method as being one of ‘Branding moderates as extremists’ and gave as an example his targeting of Sir Iqbal Sacranie of the MCB. She described his behaviour as McCarthyite.
Ware doesn’t so much investigate as pillory and scapegoat, substituting his own prejudices for reporting. Ken Livingstone’s description of Hitler having supported Zionism was termed a ‘cranky’ version of history. Since when is it a presenter’s job to pass judgement on a particular view of history?
One wonders what John Ware would call the memo that the German Zionist Federation sent on 21st June 1933, to Hitler?
‘On the foundation of the new state, which has established the principle of race… fruitful activity for the fatherland is possible. Our acknowledgement of Jewish nationality provides for a clear and sincere relationship to the German people and its national and racial realities….’
Zionist historian, David Cesarani, wrote in The Final Solution:
- ‘The efforts of the Gestapo are oriented to promoting Zionism as much as possible and lending support to its efforts to promote emigration.’
Maybe Cesarani was also a ‘crank’? Or perhaps the crank is Ware? Ware is a relic of the days of Empire when we ‘civilised the natives’. He wrote of his
horror… that some migrants to this country had brought with them a lot more than just their possessions.
They didn’t understand democracy and dissent. One can only wonder at where they may have got it from! Britain’s former colonies were not a model of democracy.
Racism oozes out of everything Ware writes. He described Islam as an ‘ideology’ which is what Tommy Robinson and the far-Right says. Since the Chief Rabbi stated that Judaism and Zionism are intertwined does not the same apply to Judaism?
In an article for a right-wing magazine Standpoint (27.6.17) Enough is enough of terror — but also of our self-doubt Ware wrote of Western civilisation being ‘based on Christianity, which enshrines individualism and freedom.’
One can only wonder what Torquemada’s victims would have made of that. Perhaps Martin Luther’s fulmination that ‘the Jews are our misfortune’ is Ware’s idea of civilisation? This was emblazoned on the masthead of the Nazi paper Der Sturmer.
In the article for Standpoint Ware wrote that the Tory Party’s
‘family quarrel over Europe… risks letting in a Labour leader whose entire political career has been stimulated by disdain for the West, appeasement of extremism, and who would barely understand what fighting for the revival of British values is really all about.’
These bigoted remarks should have rendered Ware as unfit to comment on a greyhound race let alone the Labour Party. Yet the BBC was and is more than happy to employ him.
Ware is of the opinion that the alternative to British values ‘is a diffuse mush with nothing particularly special to defend at all.’ Islamaphobia is just ‘powerful ammunition’ for discrediting Prevent. But it is in the final paragraph that we understand Ware’s motivation when he lambasted the Tory party for
‘risk(ing) letting in a Labour leader whose entire political career has been stimulated by disdain for the West, appeasement of extremism, and who would barely understand what fighting for the revival of British values is really all about.’
This is the man who the BBC believed was the most suitable person to present a programme on ‘Labour anti-Semitism’. The MCB got it right when they described Ware as ‘an agenda-driven pro-Israeli polemicist.’
In an article Jeremy Corbyn’s gold standard code on antisemitism is far from black and whitein the Jewish Chronicle Ware demonstrated his ignorance, not only about Islam but Zionism too. He opined that
‘any suggestion that ethnic cleansing was a principle war aim by the Jews in 1948 … is highly contested. The Jews had accepted the UN partition plan. The Arabs had not…. The Arabs’ war aim was the destruction of the Jews’ emergent state fuelled by a religious Jihad. Survival was the Jews’ war aim.’
Ware knows nothing about the Nakba. He referred to Arab war plans but the Arab armies only invaded in May 1948 as a consequence of the expulsion by then of over 300,000 Palestinian refugees. The ethnic cleansing was well under way.
Josef Weitz, Director of the Jewish National Fund’s Colonisation Department wrote in his diary in 1940, reprinted on 29.9.67 in the Israeli Labour Party daily Davar:
“Between ourselves it must be clear that there is no room for both peoples together in this country…We shall not achieve our goal of being an independent people with the Arabs in this small country. The only solution is a Palestine, at least Western Palestine [west of the Jordan river] without Arabs…And there is no other way than to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighbouring countries, to transfer all of them; not one village, not one tribe, should be left…Only after this transfer will the country be able to absorb the millions of our own brethren. There is no other way out.”
Commenting on what he had written in his diary 27 years later Weitz wrote that:
when the UN passed a resolution to partition Palestine into two states, the War of Independence broke out to our great good fortune; and in this war a twofold miracle happened: a territorial victory and the flight of the Arabs. In the Six Days’ War one great miracle happened: a tremendous territorial victory; but most of the inhabitants of the liberated territories remained ‘stuck’ to their places which may destroy the very foundation of our state.”
Ware cannot help but be aware of the Zionist penchant for ethnic cleansing. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that if you want to establish a ‘Jewish’ state in a land where two-thirds of the population are Palestinian then you have to expel them.
John Ware very generously compliments me when he says that ‘Greenstein must be one of the most disagreeable individuals I’ve ever set eyes on’
Ware never makes any distinction between Zionists, Israelis and Jews. He is clearly unaware of the Post-Zionist Israeli Historians such as Benny Morris or Ilan Pape otherwise he would not have written such junk.
In the same article Ware makes his own views crystal clear.
So deeply into Labour’s Left has anti-Zionism morphed into antisemitism (sic) — itself a Corbyn legacy — that Jewish Labour members are avoiding meetings.
When Ware embarked on Is Labour Anti-Semitic? his mind had long been made up. Even New Labour’s David Blunkett had savaged Panorama’s The Asylum Game and Ware, for
playing into the hands of a “Powellite anti-immigration agenda” …
He particularly singled out for criticism the BBC1 Panorama special, the Asylum Game, and its writer and presenter, John Ware, for producing a “poorly researched and overspun documentary” which repeated unchallenged the claims of “the rightwing anti-immigration pressure group, Migration Watch”.
In another article for the Jewish Chronicle in November 2016 Why the I-word has closed down debate on extremism Ware defended the notorious Islamaphobe Douglas Murray, Associate Director of the Henry Jackson Society and on the board of the far-Right Gatestone Institute. Gaby Hinsliffe in a Review of Murray’s The Strange Death of Europe described how
The rightwing journalist and commentator cites Enoch Powell and wants to protect white Christian Europe from ‘outsiders.’ [33]
Ware wrote in the Jewish Chronicle that
Islamophobia — however it is defined — will abate when terrorism carried out in God’s name ceases.
Ware quoted favourably Murray’s assertion that the term “Islamophobia” was ‘a meaningless idea – a crock.” Ware explained the difference between anti-Semitism and what he termed ‘(authentic) Islamophobia’.
‘The former is entirely irrational, the latter reactive.’
Which is exactly how anti-Semitism used to be defended. Ware blamed Muslim radicals
who have brought it on their fellow Muslims — by their promotion of Islam as a political ideology.
What is surprising is that if the BBC and Panorama were seriously interested in exploring racism in British political parties, and the same is equally true for the EHRC, then there is plenty of scope for a programme about the Tory Party. More than half of Conservative Party members questioned for a poll believed Islam is a threat to British life.
In 1987 Ware tried to discredit former army intelligence officer Colin Wallace on Panorama. Paul Foot, who was a brilliant investigative journalist dismissed Ware as a shoddy reporter. As the article A long history of lies against the left explained
In 1987 Ware reported for a Panorama documentary that tried to discredit former army intelligence officer Colin Wallace.
Wallace had exposed a “dirty tricks” campaign against Labour prime minister Howard Wilson.
Ware claimed Wallace was a fantasist. But as investigative journalist Paul Foot wrote, Ware’s own report was riddled with obvious errors.
Wallace’s letter in The Spectator showed how Ware was cavalier in his approach to facts and an establishment journalist:
John Ware, the former Sun reporter who now works for the BBC, no doubt owes much of his skill and flair as a writer to his days with his old newspaper.
Ware was defending the British army against allegations of illegal activity. As in Palestine Ware went out of his way to defend the colonial authorities. Ware is the go to ‘journalist’ whenever colonial malpractice needs defending. It’s no surprise that the BBC, the old Voice of the British Empire, should solicit his services much as someone solicits a prostitute.
As Robin Ramsay of The Lobster explained Colin Wallace, who was framed for the murder of a man in Arundel (and later cleared) was subject to a concerted attempt at discrediting him. But for Paul Foot’s investigation this would have stuck.
In 2015 Ware produced a documentary Jeremy Corbyn: Labour’s Earthquake on Corbyn’s first leadership campaign. It featured claims from right wing Labour figures that a Corbyn victory would lead to left wing “thuggery and intimidation”.
The Independent described how Panorama lied when they told Corbyn’s team that their film was about the Labour leadership campaign as a whole, including all four candidates.
‘A source in Mr Corbyn’s campaign accused the BBC of conducting “a complete hatchet job” on Mr Corbyn.’
Ware produced a number of films attacking Muslims and Palestinians. One suggested that Palestinian charity Interpal funded terrorism. Others have targeted the Muslim Council of Britain and Muslim Engagement and Development (Mend).
Interpal successfully sued the Daily Mail in 2019 and was awarded £120,000 for alleging it funded terrorism. Ware also attacked Mend accusing it of antisemitism due to its members’ criticisms of Israel.
In Panorama or Propaganda Faisal Bodi documented Ware’s Islamaphobic journalism. Arzu Merali also documented the Islamaphobia of Ware in The banality and boredom of anti-Muslim witchhunts. Or beware John Ware for Middle East Eye,
In ‘It’s the last chance for Panorama’ Ware was quoted by James Silver as being:
“A notorious pro-Israeli Islamophobe”, “desperate to discredit Muslims” with “a track record for displaying unfairness and twisting the truth”. Panorama’s leading reporter, John Ware, is not quite public enemy number one for many British Muslims – that is an accolade no doubt held by Bush or Blair – but postings such as these on the Muslim Public Affairs Committee website show he comes a close second.
It says everything about the impartiality of the BBC, with its much vaunted ‘balance’, that it has continued to employ John Ware, a bigot for all seasons, whenever it has wanted to attack either the left or Muslims. We can therefore expect no better of Ware’s expose tomorrow of British Muslims and Hamas. Ware is a known liar and that is why the BBC employs him.
Ware not only writes for the anti-Palestinian Jewish Chronicle he owns part of it. In 2020 when the JC was going bankrupt Ware was part of a consortium which put in a bid to save it.
When two members of the consortium, William Shawcross and Rabbi Jonathan Hughes were contacted by the Jewish News they said that they didn’t know who was funding the bid. Clearly Ware has a lot invested, personally and politically in supporting both Zionism and Islamaphobia. As such he is about the worst person imaginable to be producing documentaries on Muslims for the BBC. It is like asking Nick Griffin of the British National Party to produce a documentary on British Jews.
The JC, according to ABC, the media industry’s auditor, had a paid sale of only 6,371 for May/June 2023. If it was any other paper the JC would have been allowed to go to the wall but it is considered too valuable a propaganda organ by the Zionists to be allowed to die a natural death.
To say that there is a conflict of interest between Ware as owner of the JC and Ware as BBC journalist is to put it mildly. Tomorrow night we can look forward to more of the same. I suggest that people get on the phones and start making complaints to the BBC now. To make a complaint go here and to phone in a complaint ring 0843 254 8737
Tony Greenstein
