See the response by Chancellor Drake to what happened on May 13th:
Incident: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8OJvR7hAT8
Response: http://www.chancellor.uci.edu/100515_response.php

As for the police report, I personally know both the woman involved and the witness to the event, who was also threatened in front of police officers with no response. There was no twisting involved. To see further examples, visit http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/uc-irvine-still-enforcing-sharia-law/

The three of you are mostly focusing on one paragraph in my article. I was given a strict word limit, and thus I was not able to expand further on my comments towards Israel. If you would like to learn more about the history of the state and the region, I would recommend looking through this booklet, which provides many sources (pages 14-17 discuss much of the controversial issues):
http://www.emanuel.org/_kd/Items/actions.cfm?action=Show&item_id=4376

If you would like to read more about the conflict from a site with additional sources, visit:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mftoc.html

Yes, Israel has made mistakes. But why are they the sole focus of attention? Many of these groups that claim to be pro-Palestinian are actually anti-Israel. If they were truly pro-Palestinian, then they would recognize and spend an proportional amount of time on the largest threat to the safety and security of the Palestinian people: the Arab world and the terrorist organizations for which they so proudly cheer. Below are some examples.

http://www.hudsonny.org/2010/03/what-about-the-arab-apartheid.php
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/may162010/palestinian-return-fl.php
http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article54490.ece

I hope that these links provide you with additional information that you find to be of use.

Kind regards,
Joe Wolf

There is a solid case to be made that the Arab states remain the last great outpost of despotism and tyranny on earth, and people need to be reminded as much. Indeed, the Arab world today is a living encyclopedia of outmoded forms of government, from sultanates such as Oman and emirates such as Qatar, to thuggish dictatorships such as Syria and dynastic monarchies along the lines of Jordan. It may be a political scientist’s dream, but it is a nightmare for the hundreds of millions of Arabs chafing under oppression and tyranny.

Basic and fundamental freedoms such as personal autonomy and individual rights are routinely trampled upon, and ethnic and religious minority groups suffer extreme discrimination and
intolerance. Just ask Coptic Christians in Egypt, Baha’is in Iran or Shi’ites in Saudi Arabia for starters.

This was borne out most recently by a report issued by Freedom House, the independent Washington-based group that advocates for freedom worldwide. Its annual survey, “Freedom in the World 2010,” would make for eye-opening reading for all those who cry “apartheid” whenever they see a flag with a Star of David.

Consider the following findings:

Of the 18 countries in the Middle East that Freedom House surveyed, only one is considered to be “free.”

And just who might that be? Yep, you guessed it: Israel.

Not a single Arab country – not one! – did Freedom House consider “free.” Three Arab states – Morocco, Lebanon and Kuwait – were labeled “partly free,” while 13 other Arab states as well as Iran merited the dubious distinction of being branded as “not free.”

In effect, then, this means that of the approximately 370 million human beings currently residing in the Middle East, only 2 percent enjoy true freedom – namely those who live in the Jewish state.

So much for “Israeli apartheid.”

NOT SURPRISINGLY, in a press release announcing the report’s publication, Freedom House concluded that “the Middle East remained the most repressive region in the world.” It is this message that Israel and its supporters need to begin highlighting. By casting a spotlight on the subjugation, oppression and tyranny that typify nearly the entire Arab world, we can open some eyes out there and educate the Western public as to who really shares their democratic values.

As Prof. Bernard Lewis has written, the Arab states are little more than “a string of shabby tyrannies, ranging from traditional autocracies to new-style dictatorships, modern only in their apparatus of repression and indoctrination.”

An annual Arab Apartheid Week, held on campuses and at community centers, could be an effective vehicle for driving home this fundamental truth.

Doing so will reframe the debate. More importantly, it will help Westerners to finally begin recognizing the Arab regimes for what they are: a dangerous mix of despotism and dictatorship.

Thanks Joe. By twisting a police report, claiming Israeli leaders never advocated ethnic cleansing although many of them clearly did you are showing your own bigotry.

Hopefully the physics program holds you to a slightly more exacting set of standards for logic and research — were you to write this way in support of a scientific position you would be laughed out of the peer-review process.

Many on either side of this conflict are pure zealots, and I think both have shown a shocking lack of regard for decency as well as rational discourse. This piece would sound at home on an inflammatory pamphlet, though it has somehow been published in this paper as something more than an angry letter to the editor.