Free Republic

Orange County prosecutors next week are scheduled to argue against a defense motion to keep them from speaking in public about their criminal case against 11 student activists accused of disrupting an Israeli ambassador's speech at UC Irvine last year. The motion, filed in Orange County Superior Court's Central Justice Center in Santa Ana on Tuesday, accuses Deputy Dist. Atty. Dan Wagner, police and representatives from the district attorney's office of tainting the jury pool with public statements against the 11 defendants. Defense attorneys are seeking a court order that would keep prosecutors from talking publicly to the media or...

Assemblyman DeVore seeks ban of Muslim Student Union from UC Irvine IRVINE — Assemblyman Chuck DeVore sent a letter to UC Irvine's chancellor asking him to ban the Muslim Student Union from campus following several of the group members' arrests while disrupting a speech by Israel's ambassador to the United States. DeVore, R-Irvine, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., also accused the Muslim Student Union of "passing the hat'' for Hamas at a fundraiser for the "terrorist organization'' last year. "It's time to ban this organization from campus,'' DeVore...

UC Irvine Police arrested 11 people Monday evening on suspicion of disrupting a speech that Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren was giving on U.S.-Israel relations. (Original story about the protest.) The protesters — 8 UCI students and 3 UC Riverside students — were cited for disrupting a public event. (UCI said last night that 12 people had been arrested.)

Dr. Michael Oren is being touted as Israel's next ambassador to the U.S. He's taking a number of hits in the press. Some people have said he's too conservative, others that he's too liberal. He is undeniably one of the world's foremost historians on the Middle East. That is, admittedly, his day job, not mine. I'm a writer. I have a play called "Irena's Vow" running on Broadway. So what qualifies me to comment in any way on the man who may be Israel's next ambassador to the United States? Doctor Oren, in addition to his other achievements, is also...

www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1080695.html Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's candidate for Israeli ambassador to Washington, Dr. Michael Oren, supports a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and an evacuation of most of the settlements. Oren, a visiting Georgetown University professor, said in a lecture there last month, "The only alternative for Israel to save itself as a Jewish state is by unilaterally withdrawing from the West Bank and evacuating most of the settlements." Oren, a Middle East expert and senior researcher at Jerusalem's Shalem Center, gave a 90-minute lecture entitled "The Gaza Crisis from an Historical and Personal Perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."...