Charlie Hebdo and the Jews of France

---I do not wish to make a commentary on the root causes of the attack or the underlying problems of Islamic fundamentalism. Any fair-minded person knows that we cannot hold Islam or Muslims responsible for these attacks; we can hold the attackers responsible for the attacks. These people, and their supporters, are a fraction of a fraction of a religion with 1.7 billion adherents. How many differing views are there in America? Islam has a population of over 5 Americas. We should work together, with Muslims, to help moderate those extremist elements and work together to provide an alternative to those who feel there is none. Placing collective blame is foolish and wrong. Let us not forget that those who suffer most from Islamic fundamentalism are Muslims.---




I was not surprised when I heard the news of the attacks in Paris, nor was I surprised to hear that Charlie Hebdo had been targeted. Charlie Hebdo had been targeted in the past, firebombed in 2011 after releasing an issue that was "guest-edited" by Muhammad. The cover of the issue displayed the name of the magazine as "Charia (Sharia) Hebdo" and showed a cartoon of the prophet, with the words "100 lashes if you don't die of laughter!." In 2012, following the release of the YouTube video, "Innocence of Muslims," the magazine released more cartoon depictions of Muhammad. One of the cartoons depicts Muhammad naked, being filmed from behind while laying on a bed with the caption, "My ass? And you love it, my ass?." France shuttered its embassies, consulates, cultural centers, and schools in 20 countries as a result. Charb, the magazine's editor (who was killed in the attack), was dismissive. "A drawing has never killed anyone," he said. If only.

This sort of violence as well as threatened violence is not new and did not start with Charlie Hebdo. In 1989, Salman Rushdie was forced to go into hiding after a fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran called for his death following the release of his book, The Satanic Verses.  A Japanese translator was killed in 1991, while Italian and Norwegian publishers would both survive assassination attempts. In 2004, Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was murdered on a busy street in Amsterdam following the release of his, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali's movie, “Submission,” which was harshly critical of the treatment of women in Islamic society. Danish cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard, and Swedish cartoonist, Lars Vilks, have both been threatened, and attacked, after drawing cartoons depicting Muhammad. In 2010, Molly Norris, a cartoonist from Seattle, helped to create "Everybody Draw Mohammad Day!" before distancing herself from the project. No matter. Radical Yemeni cleric, Anwar Al-Awlaki, placed her on an execution list, forcing her into hiding. She remains in hiding today.

There are a few important points to make generally about Charlie Hebdo. Before the attack, most people had never even heard of Charlie Hebdo. Its circulation was just 60,000. That's less than Atlanta Magazine (which you've probably never heard of). This was a magazine that had struggled to fund itself. Its rival, Le Canard Enchaine, has a circulation over 10 times as large. Outside of France, and especially here in the United States, you'd be unlikely to find very many loyal Charlie Hebdo readers, if any at all. This was a magazine that you had to look for in order to find. And yet, the feeling you would get from reading the reaction to the shooting was that it was far bigger and more prominent, and that Islam was its main target. If there ever was a "focus" of the magazine, it was most certainly was not Islam, but rather the far-right and the National Front party in particular. The magazine has been publishing since 1970, and including its hiatus in the 1980s, as a weekly magazine, it has published somewhere around 1,800 issues. How many issues have caused controversy as a result of their depictions of Islam or of the prophet Muhammad? Maybe a half-dozen? How could this satirical magazine possibly target Muslims when it supposedly targeted Muslims on just 1/3 of 1% of all their issues? As Charb said in 2012, "We do provocation; its been 20 years since we've been doing provocation, and it's being noticed only when we talked about Islam or this part of Islam which raises problems and which is a minority?"

There is no other religious group that reacts to slights, both perceived and genuine, in the same way that Islamic fundamentalists do. Lewd and offensive depictions of Jesus or Moses do not cause a firestorm of controversy, and while outwardly anti-Semitic cartoons may cause an uproar, I'm unaware of any recent violence that has occurred as a result of the publishing of such cartoons. The reasoning underlying the anger of these attackers, and the reason that depicting Muhammad is forbidden in large parts of Islam is because of concern that such images could promote idolatry. As Reza Aslan explained, depictions of Muhammad is not something that is explicitly forbidden in the Koran but rather it is a prohibition that has developed over time, a "cultural taboo that arose organically." And thus, at least according to Aslan, there is nothing foundational within Islam regarding Muhammad depictions. In fact, as Aslan explains, these "cultural taboos" are somewhat particular within Sunni Islam, and are due in part to the proliferation of the idea from places like Saudi Arabia.




So the desire to obsess over the content misses the underlying issue. These attackers and those who supported them weren't particularly concerned with the content. Those analyzing and debating the content of the cartoons are the same people who condemned the attack. While the attackers were probably angered by the cartoon's content, their basic grievance was depictions of Muhammad, in a general sense. That's why in 2010 South Park had to shutter an episode depicting Muhammad in a bear costume. Or why the Metropolitan Museum of Art temporarily pulled images of Muhammad from an Islamic art collection. Or why the Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris was forced to go into hiding for drawings of Muhammad that were never actually published. It doesn't matter if the depictions are racist or if they are harmless; from the point of view of the attackers, the depictions are blasphemy in and of themselves.

And this point was on display after Charlie Hebdo published its first cover following the attack. The cartoon portrays Muhammad holding a "Je Suis Charlie" sign, with a tear streaming down his left cheek. The picture is seemingly harmless, even touching, but no matter; protests broke out all over the world.  A French cultural center was defaced in Gaza, while protesters burned the French flag on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Similar protests took place in Iran and Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands turned out for a protest in Chechnya. During protests in Niger 45 churches were burned and 10 were killed.

When Charlie Hebdo reprinted the controversial Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad in 2006, the move was vociferously opposed both by French politicians and by the White House. Then-President Jacques Chirac said, "anything that can hurt the convictions of someone else, in particular religious convictions, should be avoided." In 2012, after the magazine printed cartoons in conjunction with the "Innocence of Muslims" video, there was another condemnation. Then-Press Secretary Jay Carney said that the administration defended the right of the magazine to publish the cartoons, but also stated that, "we just question the judgment behind the decision to publish it. And I think that that's our view about the video that was produced in this country and has caused so much offense in the Muslim world."

I find these sort of statements troubling, just as I find it troubling that certain news outlets refused to publish the newest cover, like the The New York Times which  refused to publish Charlie Hebdo's most recent cover. And much of this discussion centers around this issue of offensiveness, which is, of course, as subjective a topic as one could imagine. However, it is important, if not essential to our democracy, to ensure that religious groups do not get to define what is or is not offensive. And this is not specific to Islam; Christian and Jewish groups find certain things offensive too, but simply because those groups find something to be offensive, does not mean that civil society must adhere to such limitations. And that's what is important to keep in mind. Prohibitions on depictions of Muhammad are based on religious interpretations, and thus should not be treated any differently than any other religious view.

Charb, who was killed Wednesday, said in 2012, after the magazine's offices had been fire-bombed, that "Muhammad isn't sacred to me...I don't blame Muslims for not laughing at our drawings. I live under French law. I don't live under Koranic law." It would be a useful exercise to remember that.

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The attacks are shocking and the outrage has been widespread. Condemnations have come from every corner of the Earth. A huge march occurred in Paris, and thousands of others have marched in solidarity across Europe. But the marches have focused, in large part, on the heinous killings at the offices of Charlie Hebdo. The slaughter at the Kosher supermarket, however, seems to have been overlooked.  As Philip Gourevitch wrote for the New Yorker,"The attack on the press shocked the conscience of France and of the world. The attack on the Jews, not so much."

This is a topic I'm familiar with. I've written about it previously and have followed the subject for a few years. When I spent the summer of 2013 in Italy, I made an effort to look at Jewish life in Europe, now seven decades after World War 2. In Italy, there are only remnants of the Jewish community; maybe thirty thousand Jews in the country, half of whom are in Rome. In Torino, where I lived, there are around 1,000 Jews in a city with a population of around one million. Yet, even with its small and barely visible Jewish community, the precautions taken to protect Jewish institutions is staggering. The synagogue in Torino sits in a plaza protected by metal safety bollards, encircled by a fence with pointed tips, and watched over by armed soldiers, who sit in an army-camouflaged vehicle. When I went there for services on a Saturday morning, I had to go through a security check similar to that of an airport. Now think about the fact that there are about 10 times as many Jews in Paris than in all of Italy.



I visited Paris in the Spring of 2010. I visited the major Jewish sites, including the famous Rue Des Rosiers, and the magnificent Grand Synagogue. The shops on Rue Des Rosiers would be closed due to the attacks, while the Grand Synagogue was reportedly shuttered for Shabbat services for the first time since World War 2. I remember going to the Holocaust Memorial in Paris, tucked neatly in a residential area, and having to pass through what felt like a fortress of security. It's symbolic of 2015 France, and a cruel irony, that a museum, who's goal it is to publicize the Holocaust has to make sure it doesn't publicize itself. But what I remember most vividly is the comments of an old camp friend, who I stayed with and who spoke despondently about anti-Semitism and the future of Jews in France. This was in 2010. Two years later, a Muslim extremist in Toulouse killed a Rabbi and three children outside a Jewish school. And now, this.

There is a perverse obsession with Jews by Islamic fundamentalists, seen as a distinct and separate entity within the larger confines of a society; Jews are not French or Parisian, Jews are Jews, monolithic and indistinguishable. During the attack at Charlie Hebdo, 10 people were killed. 9 of them were men. According to one employee, she was spared because she was a woman. But there was one woman who was killed at Charlie Hebdo. Her name was Elsa Cayat. The difference, you ask? She was Jewish. In 2008, a handful of gunmen attacked the city of Mumbai, which bore some similarities to the attack on Paris. While the gunmen attacked targets of notoriety in the city, like a popular cafe and five-star hotels, the gunmen also staged an attack on a narrow street, in a residential area, away from the center of the city, entering a seemingly innocuous building called the Nariman House. It was a Jewish Center operated by Chabad-Lubavitch. During the siege at the Jewish Center, which killed 6 people, one of the gunmen communicated with a handler, presumably in Pakistan. The handlers cogently explain the rationale of attacking the building; "As I told you, every person you kill where you are is worth 50 of the ones killed elsewhere."




There is a rising tide of intolerance and bigotry in Europe, propagated in large part by an ever more potent political right-wing. The National Front in France will likely see big gains following the attack. Huge gains have occurred already in Greece, with the Golden Dawn party, in Ukraine, with the Svoboda party, and in Hungary, with the Jobbik party. Then there are the perpetrators of the violence, mostly recent immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East. The Kouachi brothers were of Algerian heritage, while Amedy Coulibaly had Malian heritage. Mohammad Merah, the attacker in the 2012 Toulouse attack was also of Algerian heritage. The shooting at the Jewish museum in Brussels early last year was carried out by Mehdi Nemmouche, a French national of Algerian origin.

The attack leads me, as well as European Jews, to wonder what exactly the future of Jews in Europe will look like. Aaliyah to Israel from France saw a huge increase last year from the year previous, and that number will likely go up following the attack. It is no coincidence that the four victims of the siege at the Kosher supermarket will be buried in Jerusalem. When I wrote about European anti-Semitism in 2013, I said that there is a "persistent, inchoate threat, which continuously raises fear and apprehension but will likely never reach the same level as it once did; there is no threat of another European Holocaust." That persistent, inchoate threat is likely to be the reality going forward. We'll mourn the victims at the Kosher supermarket, and we'll hear the calls to action, but our attention will turn elsewhere; in fact, it already has. The refrain will be freedom of speech, not freedom for the Jews to feel safe in their own country. Anti-Semitism will continue in France and an attack on a Jewish site will occur again. Little changed following the 2006 torture and murder of Ilan Halimi, a 23 year old French Jew, nor did it change following the murders in Toulouse in 2012. In fact, life got worse for French Jews. European anti-Semitism is cyclical. Attacks occur. Then the calls for change, for tolerance. And then the gaze turns elsewhere. Real change in France has always been, and will continue to be, ephemeral. If this is what France looks like seven decades after the Holocaust, how much do you really think France will be affected by the murder of four Jews in a supermarket?

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Excerpt From My Targeted Killing Paper: The U.S. and Israel

America and Targeted Killing

The two faces of targeted killing are the United States and Israel. Other countries partake in targeted killing, but it is these countries whose utilization of targeted killing is likely to make the news. The use of targeted killings dates back many decades, but for purposes of our inquiry here, the areas of concern are those targeted following the attacks on September 11. The issue of targeted killing can be traced back to the Church Committee’s criticism of the covert assassination program during the Cold War, which brought President Gerald Ford to promulgate an executive order banning assassinations, a prohibition that was later incorporated into Executive Order 12333 (1981) signed by President Ronald Reagan, which remains in effect today.

The first targeted killing post 9/11 is believed to be attributed to Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, who was killed in November 2002, when a Predator Drone fired a missile into a car he was in. Al-Harethi was a suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole, and the attack was executed with the approval of the Yemeni government, removing some concerns regarding its legality. The U.S. has since used its targeted killing program in a number of countries, but the program can be split into two. One targeted killing program exists in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which were recognized as war zones, and thus an “extension of conventional warfare.” It is the second program, operated by the CIA, which is the object of controversy, and for many around the world, profound ire.

Under domestic law, the AUMF allows the President to “use all necessary and appropriate force” against those who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the 9/11 attacks or “harbored” the attackers. But domestic law, except for the cases of American citizens, is not really an issue in regards to the CIA program. The issue is with international law. (editor's note: the AUMF is presumably supposed to apply to Al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and is supposedly in relation to the attacks on 9/11, but it has been decided (unconscionably) that it now applies to ISIS. ISIS had no relationship to 9/11 and specifically broke off from Al-Qaeda.)

A targeted killing conducted by one state in the territory of a second does not violate the latter's sovereignty if either the second state consents, or the first, targeting, state has a right under international law to use force in self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, because the second state is responsible for an armed attack against the first state, or the second state is unwilling or unable to stop armed attacks against the first state launched from its territory. International law permits the use of lethal force in self-defense in response to an “armed attack” as long as that force is necessary and proportionate.

President Obama laid out the guidelines for the use of targeted killing in 2013. The requirements include having a legal basis to use force and that the target pose a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons. Once the decision to strike is made another set of determinations must be made, which include near certainty that the terrorist target is present; near certainty that non-combatants will not be injured or killed; an assessment that capture is not feasible at the time of the operation; an assessment that the relevant governmental authorities in the country where action is contemplated cannot or will not effectively address the threat to U.S. persons; and an assessment that no other reasonable alternatives exist to effectively address the threat to U.S. persons. There is also a requirement of abiding by international legal principles, including respect for sovereignty and the law of armed conflict.

The ACLU has argued that the AUMF only allows strikes in war zones or battlefields, suggesting that even the border regions with Pakistan would not qualify. Their position is directly contrary to the Obama administration and others, and the assertion seems misplaced. There is no geographic limitation explicitly stated in the AUMF. If you were to use the logic employed by the ACLU, the strike on Osama bin-Laden would exceed President Obama’s authority.

In a paper, concerning the legality of targeting Anwar Al-Awlawki, Robert Chesney suggests that treaty language does not impose geographic restrictions and that a strict, formalistic approach to geographical scope would encourage parties to spread their forces outside the armed conflict zone, destabilizing peaceful states. Certainly, this does not mean that the United States can strike in friendly countries, who exercise control and who are opposed to Al-Qaeda. It is the countries like Pakistan, whose efforts in stamping out terrorism are suspect, and in Yemen, where the government is very weak, that targeting could be permissible.

The difference between Israel and the United States appears to be the individualized suspicion and case by case determinations. Additionally, it appears as though the United States, in its drone war, may not exactly know who it is targeting, relying on what are termed “signature strikes,” which target groups of men believed to be associated with terrorist groups, but whose identities aren’t always known. The other type of strike, known as “personality” strikes, targets known terrorist leaders.

These signature strikes cannot withstand scrutiny. If you do not know who the target actually is, then it is impossible to assess the possible threat that they may pose. It is difficult to determine how many of these types of strikes have been perpetrated since 9/11, but the number is likely significant, as the total number of drone strikes (including personality strikes) numbers in the hundreds, including 122 in Pakistan alone in 2010.[ix] If Pakistan is any indication, the numbers do not look good. Only 58 known militant leaders have been killed in drone strikes in Pakistan, representing just 2% of total deaths. The lack of statistics presents a difficult challenge, but there are numerous instances in which large numbers of civilians have been killed.

On December 17, 2009, according to numerous media reports and Amnesty International, the United States launched cruise missiles carrying cluster bombs at a village in southern Yemen called Al-Majalah.[xi] The strike killed 41 civilians, including 14 women and 21 children. The target was supposedly an Al-Qaeda training camp, and there were reports that 14 militants were also killed, but the primary target, Qasim al-Raymi, is believed to have survived.

Four years later, following Obama’s more stringent regulations for targeting, hellfire missiles struck a convoy in southern Yemen. The convoy was believed to have actually been a wedding procession. The missiles killed at least 12 and wounded at least 15 others.

On July 6, 2012, in a small village called Zowi Sidgi, in North Waziristan, Pakistan, a series of drone strikes killed 18 male laborers, including one child. The first strike struck a tent where men had gathered for an evening meal. The second strike occurred minutes later after others had come to help those injured in the first strike.

Because of the lack of available statistics, it is hard to determine the number of civilian deaths, as a percentage of total deaths. But, as you might expect, the United States and Pakistan have different numbers than a number of human rights organizations. Last year, Pakistan claimed that only 3% of U.S. drone strikes were noncombatants (67 out of 2,160). However, the UN has claimed the number to be much higher, closer to 18%.

In a moment of candor last year, Lindsey Graham, asserted that drone strikes had killed 4,700 people outside the recognized battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. Graham’s death count would raise questions about the much-vaunted precision of the strikes. Using the Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s count, the U.S. has launched between 416 and 439 drone strikes in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia since the U.S. first successfully weaponized an MQ-1 Predator a decade ago. Using the 18% figure determined by the UN, those 4,700 deaths would mean that nearly 850 civilians have also been killed.

Oddly enough, there was once a time where targeted killings were abhorrent to United States policy makers. The American Ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, said, in 2001, before the attacks on 9/11 that, “The United States government is very clearly on record as against targeted assassinations. . . . They are extrajudicial killings, and we do not support that.” Now, there is no longer any doubt that targeted killing has become official U.S. policy. Gary Solis, who once ran the law program at the U.S. Military Academy, commented on the change. “The things we were complaining about from Israel a few years ago we now embrace,” Solis says. Now, he notes, nobody in the government calls it assassination. 

At first, some intelligence experts were uneasy about drone attacks. In 2002, Jeffrey Smith, a former C.I.A. general counsel, told Seymour M. Hersh, for an article in the New Yorker, “If they’re dead, they’re not talking to you, and you create more martyrs.” And, in an interview with the Washington Post, Smith said that ongoing drone attacks could “suggest that it’s acceptable behavior to assassinate people. . . . Assassination as a norm of international conduct exposes American leaders and Americans overseas.” According to the New America Foundation, Obama authorized as many drone strikes in his first nine and a half months than President Bush did in his final three years. By 2012, President Obama had ordered six times as many drone strikes in Pakistan than President Bush did in his eight years in office.

Are Targeted Assassinations Good for Israel?

In the 1990s, Israel insisted that it did not engage in targeted killings. When accused of doing so, the Israel Defense Forces “wholeheartedly” rejected the accusation, stating that “there has never been, nor will there ever be an IDF policy of intentional killing of wanted fugitives ... the sanctity of life is a basic IDF value.”

Israel’s public acknowledgement of its targeted killing policy in 2000 was, for some, a revelation. As is often the case within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, tendentious views and interpretations of the policy quickly emerged. For those with only a facile understanding of the conflict, such a public pronouncement could elicit reactions that Israel had been surreptitiously hiding the program. The reality is that the public acknowledgement was merely an affirmation of an already well-known reality; a paradoxical reality that dates back to Israel’s independence.

Before Israel was founded, in 1948, there were three main Zionist military forces operating in the British Mandate of Palestine. The Haganah, meaning “Defense,” was the main body, which would later make up a large chunk of the newly formed Israel Defense Forces. However, there were two other bodies active before Israel’s founding, the Irgun and Lehi. Both of these organizations were more militant than the Haganah, and would later form the more conservative blocs of Israel’s political system. The two groups are notable for a number of deadly attacks carried out against various targets during Israel’s founding. The King David Hotel Bombing, which killed nearly 100 people, was orchestrated by the Irgun. Lord Moyne, a notable British businessman, and Folke Bernadotte, a Swedish diplomat, were both assassinated by the Lehi. And most notably of all, the massacre of Deir Yassin, a brutal and abhorrent attack on a Palestinian village, which left over 100 civilians dead; committed by both the Irgun and the Lehi. At the time of the Deir Yassin massacre, the Irgun was led by Menachem Begin, who would later become Prime Minister. Members of both units would later merge into the Israel Defense Forces.

This reality of Israel’s nascent years was that there was very little hesitancy in using violence to achieve strategic objectives, a tactic which would later be embraced and used by members of Israel’s upper echelon of leaders. It is also important to put such willingness into context. Israel was emerging out of the ashes of the Holocaust, and many were determined to undertake any means necessary to ensure its survival. Fear and apprehension gripped the Jewish community.

Amos Oz poignantly and brilliantly discussed this in his prodigious autobiography, A Tale of Love and Darkness. Oz describes the fear that gripped Jews living in Palestine in the years before 1948, dealing with threats from Arab leaders like Azzam Pasha, the former secretary general of the Arab League. Pasha warned Jews that “if they dared to attempt to create a Zionist entity on a single inch of Arab land, the Arabs would drown them in their own blood.” Oz characterized Jewish Jerusalem at the time as a “Chekhovian town, confused, terrified, swept by gossip and false rumor, at its wits’ end, paralyzed by muddle and terror.” Thus, the need to use force as a necessity is rooted in its foundation. But the use of violence also coincided with a clear willingness to seek peaceful solutions. Israel’s reality is that it is a paradox, embodied within its famous leaders.

Ariel Sharon was well known for his military prowess and ruthlessness, presiding over the Qibya Massacre in the West Bank, and bearing indirect responsibility for the Sabra and Shatila Massacre in Lebanon. Yet, Sharon, who was once closely aligned with Israel’s right-wing Likud party, also orchestrated Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, removing Jewish settlers and handing over the territory to the Palestinians. Former Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, signed a peace treaty with Jordan and the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, a move for which he was later assassinated, by a Jewish extremist. But Rabin was also the former Defense Minister, with a distinguished military career, responsible according to some for the mass expulsion of Palestinians from Lydda and Ramla during the War of Independence.

The issue of targeted killings is a microcosm of this paradox. There is a legitimate and undeniable need for Israel to use force to defend itself. Since its founding, a myriad of different groups have been trying to destroy it. First, it was Arab countries in the War of Independence, the Six Day War, and then during the Yom Kippur War. Then it was various groups, who received funding and safe-haven from Arab countries. Today, the Sunni Islamist group Hamas controls the Gaza Strip while its political leader lives in Qatar (formerly Syria), receiving funding and weapons from Iran. Hezbollah, the Shiite fundamentalist group, controls large parts of Lebanon, while aiding Bashar Al-Assad in Syria, and receiving huge support from Iran. Both groups have made no qualms out of stating their intent to destroy Israel. Is it possible to placate these groups and their leaders? Is it quixotic to think the cessation of targeted killing will also bring about an onset of acceptance and embrace? Are targeted killings myopic; a means of retribution that only embitters more hostility and hatred towards Israel? The answer, just like every answer regarding this conflict, is that it’s complicated.

Two of the most notable targeted killing operations were Operation “Wrath of God” and Operation “Spring of Youth.” The two operations were separate, but interrelated, both done in response to the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Olympic Games, where 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were murdered by Palestinian terrorists belonging to the organization Black September. Both operations resulted in the deaths of dozens of Palestinians, some with blood on their hands, and some not involved in violent activities, as well as the death of innocent civilians. In 1973, in an operation gone wrong, now known as the Lillehammer Affair, Mossad agents killed a Moroccan waiter, who they thought was the noted terrorist, Ali Hassan Salameh. When Salameh was eventually killed, years later by a 100 pound car bomb, 8 others were killed, including four civilians. During Operation Spring of Youth, Israeli forces, led by Ehud Barak, who would later become Prime Minister, stormed a safehouse in Beirut killing three top PLO leaders. One of those was Kamal Adwan. He was shot 55 times in front of his family; his 5 year old daughter, Dana, witnessed the killing.

The reality of those operations was that they were carried out because, according to Golda Meir, bringing those responsible to trial would be impossible. But was it effective? Or does it matter? Was this the only means of justice? What are the long-term ramifications for the family members who witnessed the murder of their husband or father? At what point does the cycle end? In the movie Munich, which details the Munich Massacre and the subsequent retaliation, one of the agents tasked with killing Palestinian suspects wonders what he has accomplished. He wonders whether those responsible should be brought to justice in a courtroom rather than with a bullet. Has the killing brought about its intended objective? “Every man we have killed has been replaced by worst,” he says, asserting that, “There is no peace at the end of this.” 

There are few people in Israel who understand these realties better than the leaders of the Shabak, or Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security organization; Israel’s FBI. Less than 2 years ago, an Israeli filmmaker released a documentary, which chronicled the history of the Shabak, through interviews with six former heads of the organization. A major segment of the documentary involves “targeted assassinations,” illustrating the impossible balancing act imposed on Shabak’s leaders. These difficulties manifested themselves most notably during the Second Intifada.

Yahya Ayyash was a senior member of Hamas and a bombmaker, known as “The Engineer.” Ayyash was responsible for bombs that killed dozens of Israelis in the 90s, actions done in part to derail peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. In response, Israel hatched a plan to kill him. The Shabak authorized an operation, by which a cellphone, loaded with explosives, would make its way to Ayyash. Ayyash missed his family dearly, and owing to this weak spot, Israel exploited his desire to talk to his father.[xxviii] On a Friday morning in January of 1996, Ayyash’s father called his son, and once the wiretap recognized the voice of Ayyash, the cell phone exploded, killing Ayyash. There were no other civilian injuries or deaths. For some it was justice. But the killing had consequences. At the time of the assassination, Israel had been relatively free of attacks. The response by Palestinian groups was devastating. On February 25, 1996 a bomb ripped through bus number 18 in Jerusalem, killing 26. On March 3^rd, bus number 18 was attacked again, killing 19. The next day a bomb exploded in central Tel-Aviv, outside Dizengoff Center mall, killing 13. When asked about the relationship between Ayyash’s assassination and the deaths of nearly 60 Israelis, former Shabak head Avi Dichter, confirmed there was a connection. But Dichter points out something very important in the logic of this causal connection. The alternative doesn’t guarantee non-violence. In other words, according to Dichter, the idea that not assassinating targets means they won’t try to kill Israelis is simply a false assertion.

Salah Shehadeh illustrates another danger of targeted killing. Shehadeh was the leader of Hamas’s military wing, Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, a man thought to be personally responsible for the deaths of over one hundred Israelis. According to Avi Dichter, Shehadeh was the man who set Hamas’s terror operation in motion. The Shabak made plans to take him out. Instead of using a small explosive, like in the Ayyash killing, the Shabak decided to fire a missile into his home. On July 22, 2002, they had determined that he was home and that it his daughter was not, only his wife, and the decision was made to drop a one-ton bomb into a densely populated neighborhood in Gaza City. The results were devastating. Shehadeh was killed, along with fourteen others, including nine children. There were calls for the prosecution of Israeli officials responsible for the bombing, and accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity. After the bombing, senior Hamas leader, Abdel Aziz Rantissi (who was later assassinated in 2004 with hellfire missiles), asserted that “there will be no peace initiative after today…We will chase them in their houses and in their apartments, the same way they have destroyed our houses and our apartments.”

These two separate incidents illustrate the collateral damage associated with targeted killings. The first is that the actions will embitter deep hatred and resentment, resulting in calls and acts of revenge, which will result in more death. The second is the inherent danger of targeting suspected terrorists within civilian areas; the deaths of innocents. In both, the apparent outcome is the same: more death. So, how does it end? Ami Ayalon, a former Shabak head, delves into the difficult and painful issue during the film.

Ayalon wonders how to tell the difference between those people committing the acts, or those who help facilitate the acts, and those who simply preach an ideology. It is the ideology, according to Ayalon, that ultimately leads to the death of Israelis. And if you keep killing each leader whom advocates this ideology, where does it end? Can it end? Is it immoral? Ayalon suggest that it may be. He asserts that when you don’t deal with the person posing an immediate threat and rather with the one who is preaching, “We are headed towards a place, which is forbidden by international law, and basic justice poses huge question marks as to its ethics.” Ayalon sees a parallel to Hannah Arendt’s classic phrase, The Banality of Evil. When you begin killing people en masse, as Israel has done, it becomes, according to Ayalon, a “conveyor belt,” and “you ask yourself less and less where to stop.”

He continues, “I can prove to you that Hamas did not become more moderate after Sheik Yassin was eliminated (Yassin was a spiritual leader of Hamas, confined to a wheelchair since he was a teen who was killed by an Israel missile while he was leaving morning prayers in 2004). I can prove to you that when we killed Abbas Musawi (former leader of Hezbollah) and Nasrallah took over instead, the security situation in Israel didn’t really improve.” It is this cogent assertion during the film by Ayalon, a man who is as familiar with Israeli security as any other person on Earth, which gets your attention. But Ayalon goes a step further regarding the effectiveness of targeted killing. “I’m talking to you as head of the Shin Bet. It’s ineffective.” But what does a Medal of Valor recipient, former Israeli commando, former Commander of the Navy, and former Head of Israeli’s Internal Security, really know about Israel?

A note about the shooting in Brussels

Brussels is a pleasant, European city. It is Belgium's largest city and its capital, home to a little over one million people.  It sits in the center of a country squished between France, the Netherlands, and Germany, with the ocean bordering the northwestern part of the country. It is a popular, although not major, European tourism destination, devoid of the tourism pull that Paris, Amsterdam, or Berlin can elicit. The city is clean and well-kept, small enough to easily traverse the main parts of the city on foot. It has a limited but robust collection of museums and other attractions, as well as a quirky but delicious collection of famous food (waffles, french fries) and drink (Hoegaarden, Rodenbach). The slogan of its tourism website is "sized," with different variants depending on which attractions you want to see, such as "sized for discoveries" or "sized for pleasure" or "sized for a stay." Sized is probably a good way to describe Brussels.

I've been to Brussels on two separate occasions, for brief periods, and enjoyed the city very much. I was there in March of 2010 and again in October of 2011. My first visit was more extensive than my second, which was during an airport layover, and consisted mainly of me seeing the Manneken Pis (a little statue of a child peeing), eating french fries and a waffle, and indulging too heavily on Belgian beer. During my first visit, I was able to visit the main attractions and museums in the city, including the Royal Palace, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, and Grand Place. One inconsequential stop along the way also happened to be Rue des Minimes 21, which sits cozily on a picturesque, cobblestone street in central Brussels. However, there is one noticeable difference. Unlike the rest of the street, the area in front of the building, usually reserved for parking, is an extended sidewalk. At the edges of the sidewalk are thick metal stubs, entrenched in the ground, used to prevent vehicles from getting too close to the facility. It's an extra security mechanism; added protection not afforded to anyone else on the street, only to the tenant at number 21. When you're looking for a Jewish site in Europe, like I was that day, you don't need to approach the building to know you've come to the right place; just look for the security barrier, a steady reminder that the past is never the past for Jews in Europe. The tenant at number 21 is the Jewish Museum of Belgium, where 4 people were killed on Saturday by a gunman wielding what appears to be a Kalashnikov rifle, his face partially concealed by his hat. Those killed were an Israeli couple, Emanuel and Miriam Riva, a 23 year old museum employee, Alexandre Strens, and a 60 year old museum volunteer, Dominique Chabrier.

For those Jews living in Belgium and in many places around Europe, the attack is shocking, but not surprising. In the last several years, dating back to 2008 during the Great Recession, Europe has seen an alarming rise in anti-Semitism, which has come from a couple different sources. The first, most visible source has been right-wing (and some left-wing) political groups, which are superficially different, but who all exhibit the same basic tenets of xenophobia, racism, and anti-Semitism. The second source has been recent immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa, like the perpetrator in the Toulouse shooting, Mohamed Merah, a French citizen of Algerian origin. I wrote about these troubling developments just one year ago, while I was living in Italy. My writing touched on specific elements of three major aspects of right-wing nationalism: racism (specifically through the vehicle of soccer), anti-Semitism (specifically in France), and xenophobia (Italian opposition to immigration). Often times all three get mixed together. Here is part of what I wrote a year ago in regards to anti-Semitism:

"Now, three years after my first trip, anti-Semitism is rapidly increasing across all over Europe prevalent among a growing contingent of resurgent right wing groups and immigrants, mostly Muslim, from Africa and the Middle East. Huge upsurges in anti-Semitism have been seen in the Swedish city of Malmo, which has a burgeoning immigrant population, in Hungary, where the right-wing Jobbik party is the country’s third largest, in Greece, where the Golden Dawn party has gained popularity, and in Ukraine, with the nationalist Svoboda party. Last month, one of Britain’s first Muslim ministers blamed his sentencing follow a driving accident on a “Jewish conspiracy."  And to see how it’s all come full-circle, in Germany, just a couple weeks ago, a rabbi was attacked near Frankfurt and called a “shitty Jew."

"Some have said there is ample room for comparing Europe in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when the Great Depression hit, to Europe in the present day. Certainly, the economic situation is dire now, just as it was then. Unemployment continues to rise throughout Europe, reaching over 25% in Spain and Greece and youth unemployment is even worse. In Italy, youth unemployment has reached 40%; in Spain the number is over 50%; and in Greece it is nearly 60%. This is especially problematic because young minds, when times are bad, tend to turn to ideas they do not fully understand. 

In Europe, these young minds are far more likely to turn to the far right of the political spectrum looking for someone or something to blame. In many instances they blame the government, but fringe groups seize on fear and uncertainty, enabling them to grow, ultimately blaming outsiders or immigration with the Jews being thrown into the mix...I don’t mean to sound morbid, or to suggest that the situation here, as a whole, is dire. But in some areas, for many Jews, particularly religious Jews who wear Kippot or Tzitzit, it has, as Lyon’s Chief Rabbi remarked, become “unbearable.”

The unfortunate reality is that things may soon get worse. I mentioned three major right-wing political parties active in Hungary, Ukraine, and Greece, but my references were mostly confined to their domestic actions. In Europe, however, there are also European Union elections, in which EU countries send representatives who make up the European Parliament. The elections for the body take place every five years, and its most recent edition was just last week. The results were announced just one day after the Brussels shooting and they were astonishing. Far-right groups made huge gains. The National Front Party in France won their first nationwide election, and right-wing groups in Austria, Denmark, and the UK made huge gains as well. All of this is bad news for European Jews. Here is what I wrote about the future just last year.

It is impossible to say if the economic situation in Europe will improve but as debt continues to grow and economies continue to shrink, the outlook is bleak. If Europe continues to deteriorate, the people will elect new leaders, but worsening times leaves the inevitability of a power vacuum, ready to be filled. The issues with anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and racism are real, and show no signs of dissipating. Europe will have to face the issues head-on, acknowledging their existence and devising a strategy to eradicate them. This is no easy task, and the climb will treacherous, and will be met with vociferous opposition but the alternative may be much more dangerous.

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=425037422114547568#editor/target=post;postID=845487357080051588;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=11;src=postname

The Case of Ray Rice and the State of Goodell's NFL

Ray, Roger, and the NFL

Nearly 7 months ago, on February 15th, Ray Rice and his then fiancee, Janay Palmer were both charged with simple assault, stemming from an incident at the Revel Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. According to the initial report, Rice and Palmer "struck each other with their hands" but no injuries were reported. Rice's lawyer asserted that once the evidence came out "it should wind up to be little more than a misunderstanding." But, just two days later, the first video of the incident emerged, a video which showed the lifeless body of Palmer being indifferently dragged out of the lobby elevator. Wearing an orange brimmed hat, Rice emerges from the elevator, positioned behind Palmer, holding her up and then gently letting her fall to the ground. He appears to glance around and then briefly raises his arms, as if frustrated or annoyed at the woman lying unconscious at his feet. And then, very deliberately, he picks up her shoes and grabs her legs, attempting to move the body, which is still partly inside the elevator. An employee of the hotel approaches Rice and Rice tries to lift Palmer to her feet, but she falls to the floor. The employee appears to say a few words to Rice, and Rice cocks his head back like a recalcitrant child, and begins walking away, as the employee goes to help the woman.

The video is frightening, but it was incomplete. The preceding moments were still unknown, and quickly a narrative was constructed that seemed to suggest that both parties were somehow at fault, and that the video was a result of unfortunate, rather than intentional, circumstances. John Harbaugh, the Ravens' head coach, commented on the incident less than a week after the release of the footage, concluding that "the two people obviously have couple issues that they have to work through, and they're both committed to doing that. That was the main takeaway for me from the conversation (with Rice)." Teammates quickly came to Rice's defense as did Ravens' management. In March, Harbaugh continued supporting Rice, asserting that, "Ray has told me his side of it, and everything we've seen so far is very consistent with what he said."

Nearly a month after the video is released, Rice was indicted for third degree aggravated assault, but a day later, Rice and Palmer got married, complicating any possible charges. As a result of the marriage, Palmer (now Rice), could claim spousal privilege, which would insulate her from testifying, making the case against Rice incredibly difficult. Eventually, Rice is accepted into a pretrial diversionary program, which enables him to avoid prosecution, and allows the charges to be dismissed, pending successful completion of the one year program. Following his acceptance into the program, Rice and his wife addressed the media. Rice apologized profusely for his involvement in the incident (without specifying the extent of his involvement) and claimed that he was on the road to becoming a better person. Yet, the language continued to place some level of blame on Palmer. Looking back on the incident, Rice wished he and Janay could take back the 30 seconds, and that both of them were better parents, lovers and friends. The comments suggest duplicity, when, as we would later find out, there was none. But the most depressing and disturbing aspect of the whole press conference stem from comments made by Janay Rice, who seemed to apologize for her invisible role in her own assault. "I do deeply regret the role I played in the incident that night."

Following the press conference and the decision by the prosecutor to allow Rice into the diversionary program, NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell met with Rice and Palmer together. The face to face meeting took place in mid-June, and a little over a month later, the NFL handed down their punishment. On July 27th, a little over 5 months after the first video was released, the NFL suspends Rice for 2 games; 12.5% of one season. Ravens' GM Ozzie Newsome calls it "significant" but "fair" asserting that the night in question was not typical of Ray Rice. A day later, during the opening of training camp, Ravens fans give Rice a standing ovation. After such incriminating and horrifying evidence, Rice's punishment is counseling and a 2 game suspension, not even a slap on the wrist; more like a gentle touch.

The outrage following the suspension was fierce. Goodell and the NFL were ridiculed, and rightfully so. Goodell attempted to defend his decision in light of much harsher penalties for substance abuse offenders, who had received 4 game suspensions (or longer) for drug violations. Josh Gordon, a star wideout for the Cleveland Browns, would receive a yearlong suspension for failing multiple drug tests, as a result of marijuana use (it has since been reduced to 10 games). A source of outrage also comes from the mechanism behind the punishments. The drug suspensions are collectively bargained for under the league’s drug policy. Domestic abuse punishments are at the full discretion of the Commissioner as part of the personal conduct policy. The message was clear, drug abuse is a more serious crime than domestic abuse. 

Bowing to outside pressure, on August 28th, one month after handing down Rice's initial punishment, Roger Goodell introduced stricter penalties for domestic violence, including 6 game suspensions for first time offenders. In a letter written by Goodell regarding the Rice suspension, he acknowledged the league’s shortcomings. “My disciplinary decision led the public to question our sincerity, our commitment, and whether we understood the toll that domestic violence inflicts on so many families. I take responsibility both for the decision and for ensuring that our actions in the future properly reflect our values.  I didn’t get it right.” It was a somewhat admirable admission. But, it also suggests something surreptitious, an acknowledgement of a shortcoming that never had to be a shortcoming in the first place; he could have rectified the mistake before it happened. If it took you such a miniscule amount of time to realize you were wrong, doesn’t that mean you knew the punishment was wrong initially?

Either way, the public (and TMZ) would soon force Goodell’s hand. A week and a half after announcing new penalties for domestic abuse, and less than two months after the initial suspension, TMZ released the video from within the elevator; the prologue to the initial video of Rice dragging Palmer’s lifeless body. You don’t need to be prescient to realize what’s coming, but it is horrifying nonetheless.

Before entering the elevator, at the top of the screen, Palmer approaches Rice, and Rice appears to yell or possibly spit at her. Palmer then extends her left arm, appearing to lightly graze Rice, while continuing towards the elevator. Rice follows her into the elevator and as she attempts to press the floor number button, she turns toward Rice, who appears to spit in her face. Palmer immediately turns toward Rice, who quickly unleashes a fierce left handed, closed fist, punch to Palmer’s cheek, right as the elevator begins to close. The force of the punch vaults Palmer backwards and nearly off her feet. After regaining her balance she begins to approach Rice, who unleashes another violent close fisted punch to her right cheek. The punch knocks Palmer off her feet, and with her hair flying upwards, she smashes her face directly into the back wall of the elevator, knocking her unconscious. The elevator closes right as the second punch is landed. As the elevator door opens, we are re-introduced to the initial video of Rice carrying Palmer out of the elevator.

Hours after the video was released, Rice’s contract was terminated by the Ravens, and the team deleted a now infamous tweet which read “Janay Rice says she deeply regrets the role that she played the night of the incident.” Not long after, the NFL announced that Rice has been suspended indefinitely. It is very possible that Ray Rice may never play in the NFL again. He may be reinstated at some point in the future, but that will most likely be beyond this year, and any team willing to take a chance on Rice would have to endure a public relations nightmare. Either way, Rice will be 28 in January, coming off his worst season ever (he averaged 3.1 yards per carry last season), playing a position which has an incredibly short lifespan; even if he comes back, his career as an elite running back is essentially finished.

The release of the video has left us with more questions than answers. And every new piece of information that is released makes the situation even more perplexing. There is plenty to criticize. But, there are already some people come to Rice’s defense, ridiculing the media coverage and the indefinite suspension, and it is important to address those two topics. Janay Rice has criticized the media coverage via an Instagram post on Tuesday. She castigated the media coverage and the public for making “us relive a moment in our lives that we regret every day is a horrible thing. To take something away from the man I love that he has worked his ass off for all his life just to gain ratings is horrific. THIS IS OUR LIFE!” This is an understandable and perfectly valid reaction. But, unfortunately for Janay Rice, our criminal justice system was formed in order to allow public participation. Governments (aka “The People”) bring cases in criminal courts, not individuals, so we do have a right to weigh in on the proper punishment, even (or especially) in cases such as these.

However, in regards to the suspension, critics do have a point. Ray Rice did not punish himself. He wasn’t the one who decided to suspend himself for two games. Roger Goodell made that decision. From everything we’ve heard, it sounds like Rice was relatively forthcoming regarding his role in the assault. I say relatively only because it also sounds like he helped in portraying the incident as partly the fault of Janay Rice. Either way, it is the NFL who should be blamed for Rice’s suspension, not Rice himself. Rice should be harshly criticized for his role in the assault, but Rice should not be criticized (or punished) for the decisions made by the District Attorney and the NFL. Now, his future with the league is bleak. He should have been punished more harshly by the DA (Rice probably deserved at least a suspended sentence) and more harshly by the NFL (maybe a yearlong suspension). While we may detest Rice’s actions (as we should), we also live in a country in which those who have paid their debts to society have the right to live freely in society. Rice deserves a second chance, just like Michael Vick deserved a second chance after his dogfighting charges, and just like Ben Roethlisberger deserved a second chance for multiple run-ins with the law, along with a handful of other players. This mess that Goodell made is going to make it real tough for that to happen. And thus, your blame and your ire should mostly be pointed at him. And since the second video was released, things have gone from bad to worse for the Commissioner.

The second video was released on Monday. On Wednesday Goodell was interviewed on CBS and the responses he gave were astonishing. Goodell claimed that the NFL asked “on multiple occasions” for the video and that it was a fact that no one in the NFL had seen the tape.The response essentially confirms that the NFL knew of the existence of the tape. And the contention that the NFL was not provided access or was simply unable to get a hold of it, is laughable. The NFL generates more revenue than Facebook. The NFL security team has a near unlimited budget with near unlimited resources. If it can uncover in great specificity the Saints bounty program or the Dolphins bullying scandal, it can find a videotape hiding in plain sight.  But he continues, “When we make a decision we want to have all the information that is available…When we met with Ray Rice and his representatives, it was ambiguous about what actually happened.” If that’s the case, wouldn’t it behoove you, Mr. Goodell, in an effort to make Rice’s answers less ambiguous, to maybe put an iota of effort into figuring out that video’s content? How could you suspend Rice for 2 games without knowing what actually happened?

But to make matters worse for Goodell, his story is already crumbling. It has been reported that the NFL had actually received the video in April. An AP report asserts that the NFL had the video and that someone in their office confirmed its arrival via voicemail on April 9th. A female voice from an NFL office number states “You’re right. It’s terrible.” Once again, it is still possible that Goodell never saw the video, but how? If this is true it shows a level of negligence, ineptitude or willful ignorance that is absolutely stunning. But there’s more! An Outside the Lines report suggests that Rice informed Goodell in their meeting in June, that he had in fact hit Janay Palmer, which is in direct contradiction to Goodell’s assertion that Rice was ambiguous. And now, a Wall Street Journal report states that Goodell didn’t pursue the case as vigorously because he didn’t want to question Palmer’s side of the story. It is believed that Palmer had told Goodell that she was partly responsible. That also may be true. But, the whole point of an investigation is to find the truth. What kind of investigation simply takes the information given by one person and rubber stamps it as true? What kind of investigation glosses over a video which captured the entire incident?

As far as Goodell is concerned, the process he undertook or he led, seems to be mired in willful ignorance. But this is what I can’t wrap my head around. Did they honestly believe the video would never come out? Multiple reports, like from Chris Mortenson and Peter King, have noted that people within the NFL knew the contents of the tape and had even seen it very early in the whole process. If people within the NFL saw the video, on what planet are you living on to think, that in 2014 an inflammatory video of a well-known celebrity, working for the largest sports league on the planet, would somehow remain a secret? This leads to another point. If Goodell was told by Rice himself that he had struck Palmer and Goodell had already seen the first tape (of Palmer being dragged out of the elevator) why did the release of the video result in an indefinite suspension? How much could the actual contents the video changed Goodell’s mind about this while situation?

The only possible conclusion, in my mind, is that Roger Goodell must go. This is the same commissioner who said ignorance is not a defense in the Bountygate scandal, and yet, 5 years later Goodell is using the same excuse. In my view it doesn’t matter whether Roger Goodell actually saw the video. There is a substantive difference between not witnessing a crime and closing your eyes to it. Roger Goodell closed his eyes. It is very likely that without these two videotapes, Rice would have been suspended for 2 games, and no material changes would have occurred. The public forced these changes, not the NFL, and certainly not Roger Goodell. Goodell claims to care about the issue of domestic violence, yet, it took a videotape; hard incontrovertible proof, to push Goodell to make real changes. The message before the second tape was simple: don’t get caught. And if you think he cares about domestic abuse, just look at all the domestic abuse incidents that Goodell has dealt with during his tenure. It’s impressive in all the wrong ways.

In 2010, cornerback Cary Williams (then of the Ravens) was suspended for 2 games under the personal conduct policy. Little detail was presented and his agent concluded the suspension was due to “an incident.” It appears that small incident was choking out his girlfriend. There is also A.J. Jefferson, a cornerback, who was released by the Vikings 2 days before being charged with brutally strangling his girlfriend just last year. The NFL suspended him for a measly four games but he quickly found a job with the Browns not long after. He currently plays for the Seattle Seahawks. There is also Chris Rainey, who was just signed by the Arizona Cardinals. Rainey has a sordid history, which includes a stalking charge, stemming from a text he sent to his ex-girlfriend reading “time to die.” Rainey was drafted nonetheless but was released last year by the Steelers after allegations surfaced that he assaulted his girlfriend. According to witnesses, Rainey slapped his girlfriend across the face and then chased her as she ran away. He eventually pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct. He was never disciplined by the league. Terrell Suggs (also of the Ravens) and a former defensive player of the year, was accused of punching his girlfriend in the neck and then driving his car containing their two children at a high rate of speed while his girlfriend was dragged alongside. In a previous incident from 2009, Suggs was accused of holding her down on the floor and pouring bleach on her and their son, kicking her in the face, breaking her nose. Suggs has never been disciplined by the NFL.

Two other players, Ray McDonald of the 49ers and Greg Hardy of the Panthers, are still awaiting punishment, but are still taking the field every Sunday. McDonald was arrested after an altercation with his fiancée who showed police bruises on her neck and arms. Hardy was convicted (Yes, convicted!) this summer of assaulting his girlfriend, accused of choking her and then throwing her onto a couch covered in guns, and then threatening to shoot her if she reported the incident. Hardy has appealed, but will start for the Panthers on Sunday (editor's note: as of 9/14/14 Greg Hardy has been deactivated and is no longer starting).

From everything I’ve seen thusfar, it doesn’t seem there is much support for Goodell’s ouster among the owners, although that sentiment may change as more information is released.  Nevertheless, his actions, or lack thereof, have damaged him so badly with such a broad range of people, who share near uniform agreement on Goodell’s depravity, that it is nearly impossible to see him surviving in the long run, at least without casting a ubiquitous shadow over the entire league and its players.

But, there is some good coming out of this, regardless of whether Roger Goodell retains his job.

This incident has shed an important light on domestic abuse, and violence against women. While it may be repugnant it took this long to make changes, and that it took a video to do it, changes are coming. Health professionals and charitable organizations have already noticed the heightened awareness. A social media campaign called “WhyIStayed” was started and now has over 120,000 mentions. The Ravens have partnered with House of Ruth, an organization that helps to combat domestic abuse (among other things) and have already pledged a $600,000 donation.  We often talk about the iniquity of domestic abuse on a macro scale as this abstract concept that we must confront and defeat, but it is very rare for so many people to see the hideousness of the actual act itself. The brutality of those punches shock you. And those sensations are much more important in confronting domestic abuse than those hollow abstractions we so often hear. Seeing domestic abuse in its most raw form is the most powerful tool in understanding its pernicious reality. It allows for some semblance of empathy that is unavailable in the millions of domestic abuse incidents each year in the United States. Sometimes in the darkest of situations, there is an opportunity for change. Let’s hope so.

Note: The timeline of events (and the quotes from those events) are largely taken from an ESPN timeline, which is linked. It's pretty amazing to see such a turn of events.





Some Good Additional Reads:

Information on Professional Athletes and Domestic Violence (It's a law article)
http://harvardjsel.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/JSEL-Withers.pdf

A Peek at the NFL's Finances
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-09-04/nfls-secretive-finances-a-nearly-10-billion-mystery

Some of the Incompetence Displayed Recently
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/nfl-the-league-that-never-takes-a-break/

A Trip to Benning Road

As I walk down Western Avenue towards the intersection with Wisconsin,  the ostentatious elegance of Friendship Heights widens my eyes. Capital Grille stands to my left, sitting next to an imposing, almost stately looking building housing the upscale shopping chain, Bloomingdales. There exists a very languid ambiance, as pedestrians and shoppers casually stroll around one of metropolitan DC's most pristine neighborhoods. The demographics are monotonous; diversity exemplified by differences in designer purses. Just down the street from the Metro, as if holding a cross-country mirror, stands a Rodeo Drive of sorts, housing the world’s most fashionable brands: Barneys, Dior, Bulgari, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo, Tiffany’s, Brooks Brothers, and Saks Fifth Avenue, all sitting comfortably next to one another.

This area of Washington DC is among the wealthiest and most educated in the entire country. Just down the street is Chevy Chase Village, where charming homes complete with perfectly manicured lawns are ubiquitous, housing some of the capital's most well known inhabitants (including Chief Justice John Roberts). According to Bloomberg, the average income of households living in Chevy Chase Village is over $300,000. Part of Friendship Heights is also located in Bethesda, a city of 60,000 with an opulent downtown. Bethesda consistently ranks among America's most educated cities, home to the NIH and Walter Reed Medical Center as well as being the  headquarters of Marriott and Ritz-Carlton, defense contractor Lockheed-Martin, and insurance giant, Geico. In recent years, due to a boom in government contracting, real estate developers have gravitated towards the city and the wealthy suburbs that litter the area, building upscale and luxurious high-rises to satiate an inexorable demand. But Washington DC is not one city, it is two; a quintessential dichotomy. While Friendship Heights feels like a suburban utopia, and while downtown DC is an immaculate ode to the founders of this country, there is another part of DC that is never seen, a part never visited, and a part that can feel a world away.

For my Criminal Procedure class, an extra-credit option was presented for students to go on a police ride- along in Washington DC, presumably as a way to observe, first hand, how much of the material learned in class is actually performed in practice. I assumed that the liaison at the police department would assign me to a department near my house, in the second district, a prosperous area that takes up a large chunk of Northwest DC. Given my assumed placement, I predicted an uneventful ride-along encompassed mostly with traffic stops of suburban parents on their way home from work. Instead, I received an email, informing me that I had been assigned to the Sixth District in Northeast DC, located at 100 42nd Street, near the Benning Road Metro Station.

The Sixth district, along with the Seventh district, have, over the last several years, been the most dangerous parts, in terms of violent crime, in all of Washington DC. They are conveniently located across the Anacostia River, geographically segregated from the rest of the district. It would be nearly impossible to accidentally "wander" or "get lost" in either district, as you would have to cross a river to do so. DC is split up into oddly delineated quadrants, which all converge with one another at the Capitol building. When you ask residents about the dangerous areas of DC or places not to go to, you'll often hear Southeast (as in the Southeast Quadrant), which is made up mostly of the Sixth and Seventh districts. As a whole, homicide rates have drastically declined since the heyday of violent crime, when murder rates approached 500 in the early 1990s*, a breathtaking number considering that Washington DC's population was just 600,000*. A number of factors explain the decrease including increased attention and policing as well as gentrification, which has improved previously decrepit areas and pushed low-income communities outside the city*. While improvements are evident in regards to the city's statistical reports, vast areas remain filled with seemingly indefatigable criminals, leaving whole neighborhoods in perpetual poverty. Armed with two police officers, I embarked on a trip to get a small glimpse of life in the Sixth District.

The day before I was scheduled to participate in the ride-along, I did a little research just to get some basic information about Southeast and the Sixth District. I went to the MPD website and after clicking on the "Sixth District" tab, I explored the link that says "about the community." A brief excerpt from the description describes the area as covering, "portions of the Northeast (east of the Anacostia River) and Southeast quadrants of the city. The district consists of a mix of single-family detached and row houses, along with a significant number of public housing projects." I Google mapped the directions from the Metro station to the police station to ensure I didn't get lost, and out of curiosity, typed in "Southeast DC" on Google and clicked the "news" tab, which displayed news items relating to a shooting that had taken place earlier in the week. Since I don't recall the exact headline, I decided to Google "Southeast DC" again while I was writing this post (November 12, 2013) and the top two results showed the death of a pedestrian following a hit and run, and the death of man following a possible shootout. The "shootout" occurred near an elementary school, squarely within the Sixth District, approximately 1 mile from the police station where I had been assigned for my ride-along. Of the top 10 Google news search results, 9 involved the death of a civilian. To give you a sense of how the news differentiates by district, when I typed "Northwest DC" in Google News, the top 2 results were "emergency personnel respond to house fire at Dianne Feinstein's (current U.S. senator from California) DC compound" and "Northwest DC parking sign changes, fines issued." In case you were curious about the third news story from Northwest DC it was a letter from Peter Roskam, a U.S. representative from Illinois, about a discussion he had at a local high school, titled "Impressed by D-C students."

The closest Metro stop to the Sixth District police station is Benning Road, situated on the Blue and Orange lines. Starting at Friendship Heights, on the Red line, I made my way towards Metro Center, where I would hop on the Blue line towards Benning Road. The trip quickly reveals itself as a bell curve. The group waiting for the train at Friendship Heights looks very much like me, white and middle to upper class. As the Metro moves towards downtown, the demographics slowly change and the commuters diversify, revealing a harmonious mixture of those who work and live in downtown DC. But slowly, after transferring to the Blue line, the bell curve dips back down, as the monotonous environment of Friendship Heights returns; except nearly all of the commuters are black. As the Metro passes through the Stadium-Armory stop, I am, as far as I can see, the only white person on the train.

Once the train passes Stadium-Armory it briefly goes above ground, and you receive your first glimpse of the Sixth District as you cross over the Anacostia River. On this day, an incessant rain was pounding the city and after crossing the river, I see what appear to be a massive collection of transmission and smoke towers and other large electrical equipment dotting the sky. It is the Benning Road PEPCO Station, which was slated to close in 2007. The PEPCO station has been mired in controversy, due to allegations of toxic dumping amid numerous public health concerns. The ATSDR (Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry), which is an organization operating under the Department of Health and Human Services, undertook an investigation to determine the safety of the area around the PEPCO station, located in a neighborhood called River Terrace, after concerns were raised about increased rates of asthma and other respiratory ailments. While the Agency concluded there was an "indeterminate public health hazard," it also warned that "River Terrace residents have been exposed to ozone and particulate matter above health-based guidance values." River Terrace Elementary School, which served the neighborhood and was closed just last year, sat less than 500 feet from the PEPCO facility. In addition to polluting the air around the neighborhood, PEPCO was also accused by the District of polluting the water. According to the District Department of the Environment the PEPCO station, between 1985-2003, released PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) into the sediment of the adjacent Anacostia River, on six different occasions. PCBs can be incredibly dangerous and can be exposed to those who eat fish and have been demonstrated to cause a variety of adverse health effects, including cancer.

The Metro arrives at Benning Road Station a little past 1 in the afternoon, and I make my way up the escalator. There are only a handful of people on the street as the now persistent drizzle keeps residents indoors. I exit the station and turn right, down Benning Road. Directly across the street is a Denny's restaurant. On my right, as I am walking towards the police station, are two shuttered buildings, a former child care facility, and a restaurant. Overgrown weeds envelope the parking lots, as metal poles stick out of the pavement in front of the restaurant to prevent cars from idling. After a few minutes of walking I turn left on Blaine Street, which leads directly to the Sixth District police station. The sidewalks are cracked, as the rain creates a mass of puddles, forcing me to walk on the damp grass. To my right, across the street, are a series of row houses, which appear, like much of the area , decrepit, dilapidated and destitute. At the rear of the houses, stands a narrow, barely paved road, which runs behind the row houses, at the end of which sits the police headquarters for the Sixth District.

I am greeted by a uniformed police officer and then by a plain-clothed administrator who invites me to attend roll call, which begins a little bit after 2pm. I am led to a classroom of sorts, with desks occupying the middle and far sides of the room and a row of computers on the near side. I take a spot in the far corner, smiling awkwardly as I walk into the room, on the receiving end of some uncomfortable glances. A middle-aged, short and stocky officer with a crew cut jokingly asks me if I'm lost and introduces himself. He was previously in the military and later shows me the semi-automatic assault rifle he takes on patrol. Another officer notices my Red Sox hat and tells me he is originally from Brockton, where my father grew up. After a couple minutes of small talk, the commanding officer enters and informally assigns specific areas and tasks for the officers on duty, while pairing certain officers together. The atmosphere is very relaxed, as the group discusses a spate of robberies by a new gang, who often hit their targets at gas stations. Once the meeting is concluded the officers check alerts on the computer and line up to get radios and other equipment for the patrol. After a few minutes, I am politely, but sternly, asked to leave after one of the officers does not appreciate me idly and somewhat cluelessly wandering around taking photos like a tourist seeing Times Square for the first time.

For confidentiality reasons, and because the officers asked me not to, I won't tell you the names or any information about the two officers I went on patrol with, but both were incredibly welcoming and informative, putting up with a range of my relentlessly capricious and fastidious questioning. After waiting around for a vehicle, we embarked on our journey (it felt like a journey to me) around 3:30pm. Not two minutes after entering the vehicle and exchanging some pleasantries, we received a call for a domestic disturbance, and we sped off, lights flashing, as cars veered out of our way. While I am reluctant to admit it, there was an intoxicating. somewhat addictive feeling, as we weaved our way through traffic, accelerating and braking until I could smell the aroma of burnt rubber. I'm pretty confident that if I were a police officer I would constantly be turning the siren on, even in the absence of an emergency.

We arrived, after about 3-4 minutes of erratic driving, on a street just off 295, which weaves alongside the Anacostia River, and sits next to and even cuts through a number of neighborhoods in Southeast and Northeast DC. I didn't know the protocol once we arrived on scene, but one of the officers as he exited the car, politely knocked on my window and directed me to follow him into the house. We entered the house and quickly moved upstairs, where I followed both officers into a doorway where an obese woman was sitting with a tube running underneath her nose connected to an oxygen tank to her right. A young boy, in his early to mid teens, sat next to her, as she yelled loudly, making furious hand motions, in an effort to describe the problem. Another group of officers were to my left, down the hallway, in a bathroom, where a 15 year old girl was crying. I was unsure of what to do, so I mostly stayed quiet and out of the way, as the officers meandered around the upstairs of the house, asking questions and trying to understand the situation. After the situation was under control, we left the house, to serve a restraining order across town. In the car, I asked, somewhat apprehensively, what happened in the house. According to one of my ride-along officers, the issues were with the 15 year old girl, who had recently been suspended from school, and who was off her medication for a behavioral disorder. I asked whether this was a common issue, not taking medication or lacking accessibility to medication. Both officers suggested that it varied, but in the area where we were situated, a poverty-stricken part of Southeast, it was a major problem.

Our next stop was an area called Kenilworth, on Ponds St., where we would be serving a restraining order. The (presumed) owner of the house informed us that the subject of the restraining order was actually her 26 year old son, who had just left. The owner of the house was a middle-aged, heavyset woman, with short hair, who was very emotional about her son and his apparent misdeeds. She showed us what she thought may have been a loaded gun, but what was actually a BB gun, which the officers confiscated. Since the son was not home, the officers informed the owner to call the police once her son arrived. For the next hour, we drove around DC, making a few mundane stops, including checking on suspected trespassers at an abandoned house and responding to a child who mistakenly dialed 911. After being informed that the son, who was the subject of the restraining order, had returned, we headed back over to serve the order.

Trailing behind both officers, we entered the house once more, where the 26 year old son was waiting for us. One of the officers asked him to stand up as he read the restraining order, which stipulated the terms of the order and detailed the legal proceedings that were to take place. Over the course of the next 45 minutes, the 26 year old, along with his girlfriend, took all of his belongings, clothing, food, appliances, toiletries, etc, and placed them into clear trash bags, bringing them over to a friend's house down the street where he would be staying. After several minutes of awkward silence, the mother, and owner of the house, began conversing, surprisingly enough, with me. Her son, who was essentially being evicted, was upstairs with one officer packing his belongings, and her son's girlfriend was in the kitchen packing up all of their food with another officer, leaving me in the living room with the mother. She told me how her son was living in West Virginia up until recently with his girlfriend, until he moved back into her house in Washington DC. But with no job and no job prospects, and with what she considered persistent drug use, she had no other choice. Soon the mother and her son were yelling at one another, blaming each other for what was occurring. The son's girlfriend even chimed in, jeering the mother for poor parenting. At the time, the officers and myself couldn't really help but smile as the whole episode was essentially us watching family members bicker at each other for a half hour, but after we left the house, and when I returned home, the whole event had a sobering effect.

I had no personal attachment to this family and knew very little about their history, but I could only presume given the age of the son (26) and how old his mother looked, as well as noticing nobody seemed to mention any father, that this was likely an example of the vicious cycle that inflicts many low-income communities. Due to a number of reasons, minorities have significantly higher teen pregnancy rates than their white counterparts. In 2012, teen pregnancy rates among Hispanics was 46.3 (per 1,000 adolescent females) and rates among black adolescent females was 43.9, while rates for white adolescent females was just 20.9. In Washington DC, the numbers are even more skewed, where the rate of teen pregnancy, as of 2008, among black adolescent females is 64.8, while the rate among white adolescent females was just 4.3. The higher teen pregnancy rates among African-Americans is then coupled with the phenomenon of young black male incarceration rates. The United States incarcerates more people by percentage than any other country, accounting for 25% of the world's prisoners. One in three black men can expect to be imprisoned at one point in their lifetime. Overall, black men are six times as likely to be incarcerated as white men. The results are predictable. Children grow up in a household without a father, who is likely absent, either by choice, or because he is incarcerated, or in some cases, deceased. The mother, who is likely raising a child without a college degree, subsists on government support or on a collection of low paying jobs. The product is the current state of the Sixth and Seventh Districts, where the city contemplated route changes in Anacostia because youths were throwing rocks, bricks and other debris at buses or how the graduation rate at Anacostia High School was 42% in 2011 (Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School has a graduation rate of nearly 94%) or how a 22 year old young man was arrested just last week for the shooting death of a 21 year old girl. The shooting occurred less than 1 mile from Benning Road Metro Station.

The remaining couple hours were relatively uneventful. We stopped at an area where illegal U-turns were often made and gave some tickets and warnings to a number of drivers. Interestingly enough, the officers would often pick and choose which cars to pull over, based on the make and model. If a car was older and seemed beat up, the officers were likely to pull it over. If the car was a new, Toyota Highlander, chances are the officers would leave it be. Towards the end of the trip, as my prescribed time slot with the officers ran out, I asked if the officers would give me a tour of some of the problematic areas in the Sixth District, before I headed back home.

The officers slowly drove around some of the most notorious parts of the Sixth District, many of which were occupied by public housing projects. One place I distinctly remember was Stoddert Terrace, in Southeast DC, located right by 37th Street. There are maybe two dozen structures, which each house multiple families. The structures occupy a portion of 37th street as well as 37th street place, which is a narrow, uphill, cul-de-sac, running perpendicular to 37th street. The buildings were worn down, drab, brick structures, some of which had cracked or smashed windows. The officers described the area as one with high drug use and pervasive gang activity. By congregating the structures together in such a manner, the city was in essence isolating the crime to a specific area, and doing little to combat it, thus leaving residents in Stoddert Terrace at the mercy of common criminals. Children growing up in this project have little hope of getting out, and in an ironic and perverse reality, many will join gangs out of concern for their own safety, with the all too common result of becoming another statistic in America's criminal justice debacle. The officers also pointed out that DC's public housing system was an unrestrained mess. There was little to no oversight, according to the officers, with only a handful of people (according to the officers), the exact number of which I am unsure, presiding over the 56 properties, 8,000 units, and 20,000 residents that use the Housing Authority. The officers described how criminals who are evicted from a certain housing project end up lost in the system, and simply move to another one, or just return months later. And shockingly, or at least shocking to me, some criminals will live in one apartment illegally and rent out the apartment they were supposed to be living in, essentially becoming the landlord to a property they don't own and that is being paid for by your tax dollars.

After a quick stop at Subway, we headed back to the Sixth District police headquarters where I thanked the officers and headed back towards Benning Road Metro Station. I passed by the row houses with the cracked road running along the rear of the buildings. I passed the child care facility and the restaurant that are now both closed and the overgrown weeds that had taken over both parking lots. As I entered the Metro station, I passed a group of male teenagers, presumably high schoolers, huddled together discussing plans for their Friday night. I made my way down the escalator and hopped on the train towards Metro Center, the vehicle to take me across the river, and a world away.
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There exists a very stark contrast in our cities today, a contrast I have never really been exposed to. I knew that there were always bad areas within a city, and growing up outside of Boston, I was aware that certain neighborhoods like Mattapan or Roxbury were dangerous, and thus I didn't go there. But that speaks to part of the problem. Because the problems don't exist in our neighborhoods, in the quiet, affluent suburbs, we don't see them and it doesn't affect us; out of sight, out of mind. How often, if at all, do the residents of the affluent DC suburbs even travel across the Anacostia River? How can we, as a society, empathize with the plight of our country's most impoverished if we have no idea how they actually live? I was struck by a comment made by Michael Pfleger, a priest and social activist in Chicago, during an episode of the HBO series, Vice. Pfleger lamented the proliferation of guns of in our inner cities and pointed out how indifferent we seem to be about the inexorable violence that inflicts these communities, especially children. While Pfleger may be over simplifying a very complex issue, he notes that Sandy Hook seems to have awoken the nation even though children in Chicago are being killed in greater numbers, the main difference being the children in Chicago are minorities. His argument bears consideration. The number of teenagers and children murdered in Chicago in the past three years, as of August 2013, was an astonishing 176; out of sight, out of mind.

Additionally, the way in which our cities have been constructed has led to increased polarization between socioeconomic groups, which often breaks down as division between white residents and minorities. While segregation no longer exists, at least as a policy, our major cities remain incredibly segregated, four and a half decades after Martin Luther King Junior's death. Earlier this year, Wired Magazine, released a stunning series of maps, detailing the extent to which our major cities remain segregated. Each race represents a color, and the map shows, in excruciating specificity, how our cities are very often broken down by race. In Detroit, for example, the division is explicit along the famous 8 Mile Road, showing a maze of Blue (representing white residents) to the North and a maze of Green (representing black residents) to the South. Given that the area across the Anacostia River is predominantly African-American, the racial breakdown that exists along Detroit's 8 Mile Road likely exists in a similar fashion, with the Anacostia River as the dividing line.

The violence that inflicts inner cities and by extension, and disproportionately so, affects minorities, is a product of many factors. Placing blame on a single issue, whether it be guns, socioeconomics, schools, the breakdown of the family unit, poor policing, or the product of bad people doing bad things, is irresponsible and foolish; the deterioration of Chicago into self-described "Chiraq" and the continued amelioration of Washington DC are too complicated for some unequivocal, facile explanation. At the same time, the complexity of the situation ensures that a laconic and simplified remedy, which is what our politicians so often seek, will be impossible to devise. But, I have a hard time accepting that this is a reality that we are helpless to eradicate. Doesn't each child deserve an equal chance to succeed, and if not an equal chance, at least a chance to succeed? In addition to the physical toll, which comes in the form of violence, there exists a hidden, even furtive, psychological toll which can cause serious harm to an adolescent who bears no physical wounds. What is the effect on a young boy whose friend or cousin or uncle or father or brother is killed as a result of gun violence? How is the mental psyche of a high school student, trying to graduate and enroll in college, affected by two murders in the span of five hours less than a mile apart? How does a young black male growing up in the Sixth District see himself, when the only thing he sees emanating from his neighborhood, is news of another story about a tragic shooting?

There is a cruel irony about Washington DC, an irony encompassed in the supposed morality and nobility of our nation's capital. The elongated and imposing, Parisian-esque, pearly white columns that stand resolutely in front of the Capitol building, the White House, and Supreme Court; the museums with boundless and priceless treasures of art, history, science, and nature, created and sustained through your tax dollars and donations from the likes of Andrew Mellon; the monuments and memorials, so artfully crafted, permanent homes to our country's heroes and greatest leaders, their most poignant words inscribed for pride and inspiration: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." As our nations "leaders" meet in their polished offices, protected by an army of police, safe from concerns about health insurance or wondering where their next meal will come from, less than 4 miles away, surreptitiously hiding away from the droves of tourists on the National Mall, down Independence Avenue and Capitol Street, across the Anacostia River, stands the Benning Road Metro Station: a world away.