5 Anti-IDF Lies Which Turned Viral

In the battle over public opinion, much has been said about the IDF and Israel –some of it true, a lot of it not.

Many times a photo or a video goes viral, giving people a completely false impression of what really happened. Here are 5 smear campaigns about the IDF, from the least-known to the most famous, which turned out to be 100% fake:

5. IDF Soldier Stepping on Girl

In February, a photo showing a girl being stepped on by an IDF soldier went viral, sparking outrage online against Israel. First debunked by ElderofZiyon, the photo was in fact part of a 2009 street theater showin Bahrain.

The photo which circulated online

The full picture

4. Mavi Marmara Photo Fraud

The 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, also known as the “Gaza flotilla raid”, sparked much debate over the nature of “non-violent” activism. The flotilla’s passengers claimed to have been completely peaceful; the soldiers claimed to have been lynched. Several months after the incident a Turkish news outlet released photos contradicting the activists’ claims, showing a so-called “non-violent activist” holding a bloodstained knife with a pool of blood–but the photos, when published by Reuters, were suspiciously cropped and omit the weapon.

Original photo published by Hurriyet

Photo published by Reuters

Originally debunked by the blog Little Green Footballs, further proof later showed the so-called activists attacking the soldiers violently.

Original photo published by Hurriyet

Photo published by Reuters

3. Raja Abu Shaban

In March, during an escalation of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, a photo of Raja Abu Shaban, a 3-year-old allegedly killed by an IDF airstrike in Gaza, was circulating on Twitter. The misinformation campaign started when a UN worker, Khulood Badawi, posted the photo and claimed that it was recent – and that the IDF was to blame. It wasn’t true. Sadly, Raja Abu Shaban was killed when she fell off a swing in 2006.

Correction published on August 10th, 2006

The false claims were originally debunked by Avi Mayer and the IDF Blog, with later details added by Honest Reporting. Along with the Raja Abu Shaban photo, other dated photos which were attributed to the fighting also turned out to be false.

2. 2006 Lebanon War Photos

During the Lebanon War in 2006, photos that were manipulated or blatantly staged started flooding international media outlets, giving a twisted perspective of the reality in the field. The most well-known incident was when Adnan Hajj, a freelance journalist employed by Reuters,manipulated the smoke in photos of Beirut in order to falsely imply that Israeli air strikes caused greater damage.

The original photo, and the doctored one, taken by Adnan Hajj, Reuters-employed photojournalist

The photos were originally debunked by the blog Little Green Footballs. Later, bloggers who analyzed other images discovered that more photos were doctored, and Hajj was subsequently fired. Despite this exposure, many other news outlets also published fake photos or misleading captions.

Adnan Hajj’s doctored photos. Areas where Photoshop “clone” tool were used are highlighted (Credit: Lemonodor)

1. Muhammad al-Durrah

One of the most famous images from the last 15 years comes from what is known as the Mohammed al-Durrah incident. Originally filmed by Talal Abu Rahma for France 2 television, thefootage allegedly shows that Muhammad al-Durrah, a 12-year-old boy, was killed by IDF fire and died in his father’s arms. The boy became a martyr and a symbol of the Palestinian Intifada.

Screenshot from France 2′s Muhammad al-Durrah footage

The IDF was not to blame. Several sources worldwide debunked the original France 2 footage and suggest that al-Durrah was shot at by Palestinian forces – or that the whole incident was staged. Read more about the investigations and decide for yourself.

Know any other false incidents about the IDF that went viral? Share with us in the comments.

The Helen Thomas Cover-Up: Media Whitewash Bigoted Record

Helen Thomas, the first woman to work as White House bureau chief for a news service and first female officer of the National Press Club, died on July 20 at age 92. Prominent obituaries in The Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and USA Today  among others minimized to near-invisibility her final quarter century as an anti-Jewish bigot. An anti-Israel, anti-Jewish “get the hell out of Palestine and go home to Germany and Poland” mini-tirade—caught on video by Rabbi David Nesenoff—led to Hearst Newspapers’ announcement of her “resignation” in June, 2010. Obituary writers routinely noted that Thomas had apologized, stressing her hopes for Palestinian-Israeli peace. They omitted her Dec. 2, 2010 disavowal of the “apology,” which had not corrected Thomas’ false imputation that Jews were aliens in Palestine—eretz Yisrael. The Detroit News reported that, talking with reporters, she said, “I stand by it. I told the truth”  in the “Jews to Germany” declaration. “I paid a price but it's worth it to speak the truth.” According to The News, she then “took her remarks further.” In a speech to an Arab American audience Thomas reiterated the antisemitic canard of Jewish control: “‘We are owned by the propagandists against the Arabs. There's no question about that,” she said, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Congress, the White House and Hollywood, Wall Street are owned by the Zionists. No question in my opinion. They put their money where their mouth is.” On her death, many, like The Post’s Patricia Sullivan and USA Today’s Owen Ullmann characterized Thomas as firing “sharp” or “hardball” questions at presidents of both parties. But as far back as the first intifada and Operation Desert Storm, she was hectoring President George H. W. Bush about what she called Israel’s occupation of Arab land—in 1948. Thomas worked for United Press International, once one of America’s leading wire services, for 60 years. Her press eulogies noted that she covered every president from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama and along the way broke a number of “glass ceilings” for woman journalists. Two years before her videotaped outburst to Rabbi Nesenoff, CAMERA had noted what major news outlets preferred to ignore, Thomas’ antisemitism (“Editor & Publisher Defends the Indefensible Helen Thomas,” Aug. 28, 2008). Quite a record In extract: * During a 1991 press conference, one day after Operation Desert Storm allies started bombing Iraq, President George H. W. Bush denounced Saddam Hussein’s Scud missile attacks against Israel. Thomas, who virtually always labeled Israeli self-defense as anti-Arab aggression, asked: “Mr. President, two days ago you launched a war, and war is inherently a two-way street. Why should you be surprised or outraged when there is an act of retaliation?” Bush replied: “Against a country that’s innocent and is not involved in it?” Bush called Saddam Hussein’s attacks against Israeli population centers “an outrage.” Thomas, then still UPI White House reporter, changed the subject. Ignoring that Iraq was continuing a brutal occupation of Kuwait, she said “why is it that any move for—move for peace is considered an end run at the White House these days?” President Bush asks “end run?” and Thomas insists that “yes, that is considered an end run, that people who still want to find a peaceful solution seem to be running into a brick wall.” *  At the Apr. 1, 2002 daily White House press briefing, when hundreds of Israel civilians—Jewish and Arab—and foreign visitors were being murdered during the Palestinian “al-Aqsa intifada,” Thomas, now a Washington columnist for Hearst, asked White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer: “Does the president think that the Palestinians have a right to resist 35 years of brutal military occupation and suppression?” Fleischer responds that President George W. Bush supports an Israeli-Palestinian peace process leading to a two-state solution, and the administration’s “focus is on peace between Israelis and Palestinians.” Legal and moral distinctions between resistance and terrorism aside, Thomas persisted: “But does he [the president] think they have a legitimate right to fight for their land?” Fleischer: “Helen, I do not accept the description or the premise of your question and the manner that you asked it.” Thomas, muttering: “Occupation, 35 years.” * In a 2004 speech to the Al-Hewar Center near Washington, D.C., a few days before the third anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Thomas, then 84, returned to her favorite obsessions: “Good evening, fellow terrorists .... or is it evil ones? I simply say so because I presume that most of you are against the invasion and the occupation of Iraq.” She declared that “... It turns out (can you imagine?) that even Middle Easterners—Arabs—will fight for their own land. They are what we call the insurgents, or terrorists, or even the enemy. They’re the enemy in their own country, trying to defend their own land .... During World War II, those who resisted the Nazi occupation were heralded for their resistance against tyranny. But when Arabs do that, do they get that kind of salute? The Palestinians who resist every day the tyrannical occupation are in the same boat ....” Icon with feet of clay * In a May 19, 2004 criticism of Democratic Party presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry for having voted to authorize use of force against Iraq, Thomas complains that “on the Middle East, Kerry is simply a ‘me too’ echo of Bush when it comes to endorsing Israel’s illegal land grab on the Palestinian-occupied West Bank.” Never mind that Israel won the West Bank in self-defense during the 1967 Six-Day War, that the land previously had been illegally occupied by Jordan, or that by 2004 Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization/Palestinian Authority had twice rejected Israeli-U.S. proposals for a West Bank and Gaza Strip state in exchange for peace. * During the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon, Thomas used a White House press briefing to accuse the Israelis and Americans of having “gone for collective punishment against all of Lebanon and Palestine.” The late Tony Snow, formerly a nationally syndicated columnist and then White House press secretary, replied “Well, thank you for the Hezbollah view.” * Thomas’ Israel problem went deeper than Israeli control of the West Bank. In a Jan. 22, 2007 interview on the radio program “Democracy Now!” Thomas told host Amy Goodman “if you were a Palestinian — and they were 85 percent in the majority when the British decided that that could be the Jewish homeland — I mean, what would you think? Americans have to put themselves in other people’s positions. Put yourself an Iraqi. I mean, we invade a country without any cause, because it was there. “The British have no right to give. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire was falling apart. They [Great Britain] didn’t own Palestine. They got a mandate through the League of Nations, but they had no right to give it away.” For Thomas, the reality that the League of Nations granted Great Britain the Palestine mandate in part because London already had pledged, in the Balfour declaration, to assist in the re-establishment of the ancient Jewish national home did not exist. Those who lamented Thomas’ 2010 resignation and praised her work at her death included Hamas (Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement), responsible for the murders of hundreds of Israelis and listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan and other countries. A few journalists looked at the Helen Thomas icon and saw a clay idol. Jack Shafer’s article about the “grand dame” of the White House press corps for the Mar. 3, 2003 edition of online Slate magazine was headlined “Screw You, Mr. President. Helen Thomas Used to Ask Questions in Press Briefings. Now She Makes Speeches.” Shafer wrote, “Thomas’ opinion columns are a model of restraint when compared with the snarky speeches she delivers in lieu of asking questions at White House briefings.” Her “talent for speechifying at news conferences dates to her career as a reporter.” Miami Herald critic Glenn Garvin likewise had Thomas’ number in a 2008 review of what he called “the fawning HBO documentary,” Thank You, Mr. President: Helen Thomas At The White House ("Documentary Forgets to Ask Hard Questions," Aug. 18, 2008). Garvin said that in her nearly half-century covering presidents; Thomas “broke no major White House story.” Though she “is routinely referred to these days as iconic, legendary, and fearless, journalism has little to do with it. She’s celebrated not for her work as a journeyman reporter at a second rate wire service or as a virtually unread political columnist .... Her reputation really derives from scolding, tendentious speeches nominally delivered as ‘questions’ ....” The Washington Post’s Tom Shales, in a moderately complimentary review of the HBO production, said it omitted Thomas’ “stridency in criticizing Israel and defending its enemies.” The Post headlined his critique, “A Story With a Few Holes; Portrait of Helen Thomas Obscures Flaws” (Post, August 18, 2008). “The film never hints at Thomas’ anti-Israeli rhetoric” or shows that “especially during the current administration, her ‘questions’ at press briefings have been more like tirades.” After some in the White House press corps excused Thomas following her 2010 “get the hell out of Palestine” meltdown, Lanny J. Davis, former special counsel to President Clinton, said “if she had asked all blacks to go back to Africa, what would the White House Correspondents Association position be as to whether she deserved White House press room credentials—much less a privileged honorary seat?”  The Post’s media critic at the time, Howard Kurtz, wrote a column headlined “Tough love might have saved ‘Aunt Helen’” (June 14, 2010). “There she goes again. That was the eye-rolling reaction in the White House pressroom when Helen Thomas would go off on one of her rants about the Middle East. She had been there for so long, was so admired by female journalists, and was such a curmudgeonly character, that she was regarded as everyone’s eccentric aunt. “… It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that she was a member in good standing of a tightly knit club that refused to question why a woman whose main job seemed to be to harangue press secretaries and presidents deserved a front-row seat in the briefing room.” But “journalists, especially those who spend a great deal of time together, don’t usually turn on each other. If Thomas was spewing bias and bile, the reasoning went, what was the harm?” The harm, from the late ’80s on, was that news media tolerance and even adulation of Helen Thomas as a journalistic exemplar undermined the credibility of journalism in general.   via Camera

"Occupied Territories": What About Cyprus, Kashmir, Tibet?

This latest decision tells us nothing about Israel or the West Bank. But it tells us what we need to know about the EU.

What about Cyprus? That is just one of the questions that Israelis and Europeans should be pondering now that the European Union has again decided that it should dictate Israeli border and security policy.

Last week the European Union issued a ban on funding of, or cooperation with, any Israeli institutions that are shown to operate in what it calls the "occupied territories" – meaning the West Bank, or Judea and Samaria. Never mind that -- as Palestinian groups have already admitted -- the ban will affect Palestinians as much as Israelis. In its perpetual rush to find new double-standards to enforce, the EU has rushed straight in, regardless.

As one senior Palestinian Authority official said on the announcement of the news, many Palestinians in Ramallah and elsewhere will be just as affected by the EU's decision as their Israeli neighbors. The senior PA official was quoted saying:

"For our part, we approached a number of [European] Union officials, in the [Palestinian] Authority and also in Israel, to try and prevent the decision or at least to keep it unofficial," said the official, who declined to give his name. "It's not just Israeli companies that are going to be hit economically, it's also going to be disastrous economically and socially for the Palestinian community."

Well what are a few Palestinians to the EU's persistent drive to isolate the Jewish state? Tolerable collateral damage, surely?

But what about Cyprus? After all, there are many countries in the world with border disputes. There is at least one major one on China's borders [Tibet]. And there is the rather famous one which borders Pakistan [Kashmir]. Border disputes are hardly unusual. Similar stories abound all over the world, such as the unresolved dispute involving Morocco over the status of the Western Sahara. Yet all these countries are ones with which the EU has full, if not fawning, diplomatic and trade relations.

Of course, what makes the EU's latest double-standard even more delicious is that the occupied island of Cyprus is actually a member of the EU. As such, shouldn't it surely command the most detailed and persistent attention from the international body?

Yet this is not so. The northern part of Cyprus has been illegally annexed for the last four decades by Turkey. It is not as though Turkey shares a border with the island. Nor does it have -- as Israel has with the West Bank -- any legitimate historical, political or other territorial claims on the northern part of the island. There is no security reason for Turkey to sustain its occupation, as there is an obvious need for Israel to have defensible borders that do not permit terrorists from the West Bank to fire rockets into Israel, as do its friends in post-disengagement Gaza or southern Lebanon.

The crumbling buildings of the Varosha district of Famagusta, Cyprus, photographed in 2009. The area lies within Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus. The inhabitants fled during the 1974 Turkish invasion and the district has been abandoned since then. (Source: WikiMedia Commons)

But unlike Israel and the West Bank, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus is not even a disputed matter. It was certainly not some understandable territorial gain made after aggressive war waged by Greece. It was outright theft -- an annexation: state terrorism. The entire international community recognizes it as such. Yet in 2013 not only is Turkey not an enemy of the EU, and not only is it a country which enjoys complete diplomatic and trade relations with the EU, it is a country which many leading members and officials of the EU actually want to promote into a full member-state of the EU.

Into the fifth decade of Turkish occupation of Cyprus, there is still no serious dictating by the EU to Turkey over what it must do about northern Cyprus. Turkey does not find itself under even the most remote international pressure finally to disengage from its illegal occupation of the northern part of Cyprus. And that is because for some inexplicable reason the EU does not consider it imperative that Turkey should disengage from the illegal occupation of an EU member state. It does not consider that the future of any region depends on this action. Yet it does persist, even now, with its view that it can dictate to Israel about its borders. And that it can have a constructive role in doing so. Of all the fallacies of the EU, that is surely the topmost.

The EU does not only have a wrong-headed view of Israel's past, it has a wholly misguided view of its future.

Today Israel is at the very bottom of the list of countries of concern, even in its own neighborhood, let alone the wider world, with nearly 100,000 dead in Syria and Egypt going through a counter-counter revolution, and with the Sunni-Shiite conflict looking likely to reach one of its intermittent boiling points as the Shiite armies of Hezbollah clash with the Sunni-armed opposition in Syria. Amid all this, the issue of where Jews should or should not live inside their historical homeland is a matter of the lowest international import.

Yet the EU -- which always likes to think of itself as such a forward-looking organization -- is once again showing itself to be stuck in a wrong-headed and bigoted past. It is not Israel which is the problem in the Middle East. Today Israel is, in fact, about the only non-problem in the region.

Yet it is this country's sovereignty upon which the EU decides time and time again that it can intrude. This latest decision tells us nothing about Israel or the West Bank. But it tells us what we need to know about the EU.

source

UK Taxi Rapes "No Woman is Safe in a Cab"

note - UK getting more and more like an Islamic state every-day.

Taxi rapes are rarely reported; apparently because the politically incorrect crimes are not deemed to be newsworthy. BBC radio host Sam Mason, a single mother, was fired after she called a taxi company and requested a "non-Asian" driver to take her 14-year-old daughter to her grandparents' home; preferably a female driver. The operator refused, and said, "We would class that as being racist." Mason responded, "It's not your 14-year-old girl." A BBC spokesman said, "[Mason's] comments were completely unacceptable…she will no longer be working for the BBC."

Great Britain is in the throes of a rape and pedophilia epidemic unlike anything the country has experienced in living memory.

Many of the sex crimes are being perpetrated by Muslim child grooming gangs responsible for drugging, raping and torturing hundreds and possibly thousands of British girls.

But another wave of sex crimes involves predatory Muslim taxi drivers who are raping female passengers. The number of so-called taxi rapes is snowballing to such an extent that a British judge has issued a warning that no woman can expect to be safe while traveling in a cab.

Reliable statistics on taxi rapes nationwide are difficult to obtain, and Freedom of Information requests seeking accurate data on cab-related sexual assaults are routinely denied (here and here).

A London taxicab. (Source: James Barrett)

However, a much acclaimed report produced by the London Metropolitan Police Service estimates that on average there are a total of 1,125 sexual assaults, including rapes, each year involving taxi drivers in just London; this works out to approximately 22 sexual assaults against women by taxi drivers each week in England's capital city alone.

Moreover, according to a report entitled, "Ending Violence against Women and Girls in the UK," published by the Home Office in March 2013, only around one in ten women who experience serious sexual assault report it to the police. As a result, one can infer that the actual number of taxi rapes across Britain as a whole is far greater than many are willing to admit.

Apart from a few high-profile cases, taxi rapes are rarely reported by national newspapers in Britain, apparently because the politically incorrect crimes are not deemed to be newsworthy.

But a survey of stories buried deep inside local newspapers shows that taxi rapes are occurring in all parts of England, Wales and Scotland on an almost daily basis.

In a recent case in London that was reported by national newspapers, Mohamed Hacene-Chaouch, 46, was sentenced to seven years in prison for raping a 24-year-old female passenger in his unlicensed taxi. Hacene-Chaouch -- an Algerian married father of five -- assaulted the woman after she got lost in Soho, central London.

The woman, who had been celebrating a friend's birthday and had become inebriated, told the jury that the last thing she remembered was being in the back of a car and being taken to an ATM machine. She said she drifted in and out of consciousness but woke up inside the car in front of her east London home to find Hacene-Chaouch raping her. Although Hacene-Chaouch denied the allegations, the crime was filmed by CCTV cameras.

Judge Wendy Joseph at the Old Bailey accused Hacene-Chaouch of being a sexual predator and said: "It must have been clear to you that she was helplessly and hopelessly drunk. She trusted you to take her safely home. She was clearly vulnerable, she was obviously helpless and in your power, and I regard this as a significant feature." Joseph added: "I haven't heard a single word of remorse in any way, shape or form."

Hacene-Chaouch -- who was acquitted of an almost identical attack in London in 2004 -- showed no emotion and stared straight ahead as the judge read the sentence. But as he was told he would be banned from working or seeking work as a taxi driver for 10 years, he gestured to his wife, who was watching the proceedings in the public gallery, and shouted: "Allah is great! I am innocent!"

In nearby Windsor, Anshul Sharma, 23, was charged with raping a 19-year-old woman who mistook his car for a legitimate taxi. She had been searching for a cab in the early hours of the morning when she was approached by Sharma, who claimed he was driving a licensed taxi. After she was in the car, he drove her to a remote location where he raped her.

In Blackburn on July 9, Talib Hussain, 62, was charged with sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl, a passenger in his taxi. In Blackpool on July 8, Turkish-born Fatih Top, 38, was charged with raping an 18-year-old woman who was a passenger in his cab.

In Shrewsbury on July 6, Ahmet Baser, 34, was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison for raping an underage girl in his taxi. The victim and her friend were picked up by Baser's taxi outside a downtown night spot. After dropping off her friend, Baser went on to drive his victim into the remote countryside, where he raped her before taking her home.

In Nottingham on June 12, police said they were looking for an "Asian" taxi driver who sexually assaulted a 19-year-old passenger in his cab.

In Berkshire on May 21, Arshad Arif, 28, appeared at the Reading Crown Court on charges of driving a 17-year-old passenger in his cab to a remote park some 25 miles from her home and raping her twice. Arif was identified after it emerged he had earlier allowed the schoolgirl to use his phone, with her father noting down the number.

In Oldham on May 16, Tamur Yaqub, 32, was sentenced to eight years in prison after being convicted of attempting to rape a 15-year-old girl in the back of his car. The jury heard that Yaqub -- a married father of six -- had dragged the girl into his private-hire taxi after spotting her walking home. Judge Jeffrey Lewis of the Manchester Crown Court said: "You used considerable force against a girl who was no match for you. You subjected her to degradation and you have shown not the slightest remorse."

In Hemel Hempstead on May 7, Mashain Pitchei, 45, was sentenced to four years in prison for raping a 20-year-old female passenger. Pitchei, who pretended to be a taxi driver, was parked in the downtown Marlowes district when he offered a lift to the victim, who had been on a night out with friends. Believing it was a licensed taxi, she got into the vehicle and he drove off. Pitchei then pulled over in a suburb where he raped her.

In Heaton on April 11, Mohammed Akram, 35, pled guilty to sexually assaulting a woman in his taxi. After the woman entered the vehicle, Akram -- a married father of four -- drove to a remote location, where he attacked her.

In Peterborough on February 20, Mohammed Umar Anwar, 31, lost an appeal against the City Council's decision to revoke his taxi license after he admitted to police that he got a 15-year-old female passenger to perform a sex act on him when she had no money to pay the fare.

In Manchester on February 18, Elhadi Sakhri, 42, was sentenced to seven years and ten months for two counts of raping men who were passengers in his taxi. Sakhri -- who was granted asylum in Britain after complaining he faced persecution in Algeria because he was bisexual -- forced once of his victims up against a wall and raped him. He dragged the other victim by his arms down an alleyway where he raped him.

In London on February 6, police said they were looking for an "Asian" man accused of sexually assaulting three women in the Canning Town district.

In Leeds on January 9, Mohammed Shahin, 28, was sentenced to seven years in prison for raping a 20-year-old passenger who fell asleep in his taxi as he drove her home. A jury at the Nottingham Crown Court heard that from the moment the woman got in, Shahin switched off the GPS tracking system that monitored his vehicle's movements, suggesting he had a sinister motive from the outset. When she woke up, she found that Shahin had parked in a remote street in an unknown location. He then climbed into the back of the car and raped her before dropping her off near her home. The judge ordered that Shahin, after serving his sentence, be deported to his home country of Bangladesh.

In Accrington, Mohammed Ishaq, 38, was accused of raping a 35-year-old female passenger after taking her home. Also in Accrington, Mohammed Baig, 45, was accused of sexually assaulting an 18-year-old passenger. After dropping her off at her home, Baig left the victim with the words, "I'll look for you. I'll come and find you."

In Billingham, Khalile Maqsood, 31, was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison for abducting and raping a 20-year-old female passenger at knifepoint. Maqsood -- a married father of four -- offered the victim a lift. But when she got into the taxi he took a series of wrong turns, then stopped in a deserted parking garage and turned off the engine.

Maqsood told jurors that the victim had led him on and had been "really up for it." He added: "I'm only human at the end of the day. She'd come on to me. I made a mistake. I just gave in to temptation. She led me on. She consented to it. That's what she wanted."

The cab driver -- whose wife was pregnant with their fourth child when he committed the offense -- was expressionless as he was led from the dock. Judge Rodney Jameson of the Newcastle Crown Court said Maqsood had shown little understanding of, and no remorse for, what he had done.

In East Sussex, Abul Malik, 29, was jailed for seven years after being found guilty of raping a 19-year-old female passenger when she could not pay for her £6.80 ($10) fare home.

In Edinburgh, Ibrahim Selman fled Scotland after raping a woman and assaulting several others while working as a taxi driver. Selman, who was in the UK as an illegal immigrant, went on the run to the Sudan days after holding a female passenger hostage, repeatedly raping her and leaving her for dead in the street.

In Hull, Masoud Rahimi, 37, was convicted of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old female passenger. The Iranian-born Rahimi denied it was him until the CCTV footage was shown to him, with the girl fleeing from his car as he was filling up the tank with gasoline.

In London, Salam Rahman, 27, and Mohammed Elahi, 26, were jailed for nine years for gang-raping two female passengers, one of whom was a 26-year-old newlywed. In Clapham, south London, Atiq Rehman, 20, tricked a 22-year-old woman into thinking he was a legitimate taxi driver. Rehman, an illegal immigrant from Pakistan who was twice refused asylum in Britain, raped the woman for 45 minutes while asking her how many children she wanted to have.

Also in London, Assadullah Razaq, 31, was sentenced to eight years in jail for raping a 28-year-old female passenger. The defense attorney said that Razaq, an Afghan refugee and a married father of three, admitted to having sex with the woman, but maintained it was not rape. His attorney said Razaq came to Britain after being tortured by the Taliban, and that something had affected his mental state.

At King's Cross in central London, police said they were looking for a Turkish cab driver who raped an 18-year-old passenger after driving her to a remote location. After the attack, he took her to Gloucester Place in Westminster where he pushed her from his vehicle and left her lying in a gutter.

In Manchester, Shahjahan Islam was sentenced to nine years in prison for sexually assaulting a 27-year-old female passenger. The victim had been out with friends when she decided to go home and got into a taxi driven by Islam. She gave Islam her address, he programmed it into his GPS and departed. After several minutes the woman realized they were going the wrong way. Eventually he stopped the car, climbed into the passenger seat and tried to rape her. DNA recovered from the woman led officers to identify Islam as the suspect.

In Newport, South Wales, Asif Iqbal, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for raping two female passengers on late-night rides home. Iqbal's wife was also jailed for six months after admitting to perverting the course of justice by offering money to one of the victims to withdraw her complaint. Police fear many more women may have been attacked by Iqbal, who targeted women outside pubs and nightclubs in the hope they would be drunk.

In Portsmouth, Muhammed Hasan, 35, was accused of locking a 19-year-old woman with learning disabilities into his cab and sexually assaulting her. In St. Helens, Mazish Muzaffar, 43, was charged with assaulting a female passenger in his taxi.

In Sheffield, Zahoor Mahmood, 40, was jailed for eight years for sexually assaulting two female passengers. Instead of taking his first victim to her home, he locked her in his cab for more than two hours, got into the back with her and tried to get her to snort cocaine to get her "in the mood." Three weeks later, Mahmood -- a married father of four -- spotted a 17-year-old girl walking home after a night out. He offered to take her home for free when she said she had no money for the fare, but then locked her in his cab for an hour, tried to get her to snort cocaine and then molested her. Before the attacks, Mahmood, who has been driving taxis in Sheffield for more than 15 years, had twice been stripped of his license after being convicted of drug offenses, but twice won appeals that allowed him to continue working.

In Teesside, Pakistani-born Liaqat Ali, 42, was sentenced to seven years in prison for raping a 16-year-old passenger as she dozed off drunk in his taxi. Ali -- a married father of four -- stopped for the girl in Middlesbrough and drove her to a secluded spot, where he attacked her. Ali admitted to picking the victim up but denied anything had happened. Once results of DNA evidence were obtained, he admitted to having lied.

The list goes on and on. Not surprisingly, more and more women-only taxi cab firms are springing up around the UK to cater to women who prefer to see another female at the wheel. Women-only taxi firms now include London Lady Chauffeurs, Pink Ladies in Warrington and Ladies Only Travel in Bradford.

A women-only taxi service has yet to arrive in Bristol, where BBC Radio host Sam Mason was fired after she called a taxi company and requested a "non-Asian" driver to take her 14-year-old daughter to her grandparents' home. Mason, a single mother, told the operator that "a guy with a turban on would freak her daughter out," and insisted they send an English driver -- preferably a female English driver -- instead.

The operator refused to book a car and said: "We would class that as being racist. We can't just penalize the Asian drivers and just send an English one." Mason responded: "It's not your 14-year-old girl, is it?" To which the operator answered: "Yes, but that's racist to say you don't want an Asian driver."

The BBC was alerted to the conversation after it was recorded and sent to The Sun newspaper.

Mason was subsequently suspended and fired 24 hours later. A BBC spokesman said: "Although Sam Mason's remarks were not made on-air, her comments were completely unacceptable and, for that reason, she has been informed that she will no longer be working for the BBC with immediate effect."

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Extremism Escalating in the West Bank

The thousands of demonstrators didn't forget to condemn the Palestinian Authority for "selling out to Jews" instead of seeking Israel's destruction. Unlike the U.S., Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sees and hears the voices of the extremists at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque, in the West Bank, and in the Gaza Strip. This is precisely why Abbas will never agree to sign a peace deal with Israel: it would turn him into the biggest traitor in the Palestinian and Islamic world.

What happened at the al-Aqsa Mosque during last week's Friday prayers should be sounding alarm bells in the U.S., Britain and France.

After the prayers, during a demonstration in support of Egypt's deposed President Mohamed Morsi, thousands of Muslims began shouting slogans against the U.S., Britain, France and Israel

"Allahu Akbar, destroy the U.S., Britain and France!" the demonstrators chanted in scenes that appeared as if they were taking place in a remote Taliban-controlled village in Afghanistan.

But the protest did not take place in Afghanistan or Pakistan. It took place at the Aqsa Mosque during the holy month of Ramadan, during which Israel allows hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank to enter Jerusalem for Friday prayers.

Palestinians demonstrate on Jerusalem's Temple Mount against the removal from power of Mohamed Morsi in Egypt, July 19, 2013.

Why did the Muslim worshippers chant slogans against the US, Britain and France? Because they believe that these countries are the enemies of Islam and were involved in the "conspiracy" to remove the Muslim Brotherhood from power in Egypt.

But of course such demonstrations cannot occur without also shouting threats and slogans against Jews.

Why Jews? Because the declared goal of these extremists is to destroy Israel and establish an Islamic Caliphate.

It is frightening to see thousands of Muslims chanting, "Khaybar, Khaybar Jews -- the army of Mohamed will return!"

They were referring of course to the Battle of Khaybar, fought in the year 629, between Muslims and Jews living in the oasis of Khaybar in the Arabian Peninsula.

The Jews there were attacked after being accused by the Muslims of inciting hostilities among Arab tribes. The Jews finally surrendered and were permitted to live in Khaybar on condition that they gave one-half of their produce to Muslims.

The demonstrators at the Aqsa Mosque are hoping that the Muslims will again attack the Jews, this time in Israel, and force them to succumb, and either to leave or agree to live as a humiliated minority under the rule of an Islamic Caliph.

What is worrying is that some of these demonstrators were Israeli citizens affiliated with the Islamic Movement in Israel, headed by Sheikh Raed Salah. This movement, affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, has thousands of supporters among the Arab community inside Israel.

Two days later, on Sunday, the Islamic Movement organized another demonstration in support of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, this time in northern Israel.

The anti-Jewish demonstration in Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque is a sign of the growing power of Muslim extremists in the city and the West Bank.

This is a real and imminent threat not only to Israel and its Western allies, but also to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his loyalists in the West Bank.

This threat also explains why the Palestinian Authority rushed to condemn the extremists for using the Aqsa Mosque as a platform for "advancing outside agendas" -- namely that of the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical Islamic groups.

The thousands of demonstrators did not forget to condemn the Palestinian Authority for "selling out to Jews" and accepting a two-state solution instead of seeking Israel's destruction.

The anti-Jewish and anti-American tirade came as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry resumed his efforts to force Abbas and the Palestinian Authority leadership to return to the negotiating table with Israel.

Even if Abbas agreed to return to the negotiating table, he would always be afraid of the extremists, who are expected to step up their attacks on him as the talks with Israel proceed.

Unlike Kerry, Abbas sees and hears the voices of the extremists at the Aqsa Mosque and other Islamic holy sites in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. And this is precisely why Abbas will never agree to sign a peace deal with Israel: it would turn him into the biggest traitor in the the Palestinian and Islamic world.

 source -  Khaled Abu Toameh