News yesterday that an Israeli judge refused to sentence an Arab teenager to jail for throwing stones at a police car.

The judge disqualified the youth from driving for two years, ordered that he pay approximately $1300 in damages, and sentenced him to 200 hours of community service.

The judge refused the jail time requested by the prosecution because he said he believed there was a double standard in the way Arab and Jewish youths would have been treated by police in the same situation.

I am not in a position to know whether this is true or not, whether it is fair to the police concerned, or whether Jewish youths throwing stones at Israeli police cars is a major problem.

But ask yourself this:

Is there any Arab country in which a young Jew throwing stones at state offcials and property would be released because the court found that that his arrest was probably a result of anti-semitism and double standards in law enforcement?