In June, the Profession Staff Congress (PSC), which represents the faculty of New York City’s network of public colleges (known as CUNY) passed a resolution stating that it “cannot be silent” about the various imagined crimes of the Jewish state, which it accused of wantonly murdering Palestinians in Gaza and, moreover, of being evil from its inception. The resolution was passed by a substantial majority of the union’s delegate assembly. But, as K.C. Johnson describes, it triggered a surprising backlash:

Since June, more than 100 [CUNY faculty members] have publicly committed themselves to resigning from the union in response to the resolution, generating an unanticipated crisis for the PSC. The affair suggests that it’s possible, even in contemporary higher education, for anti-Israel zealots to go too far.

The New Caucus, a faction armed with fiery rhetoric about the evils of organized wealth and the benefits of intersectional alliances, has led the PSC since 2000. Its curious obsession with Israel, though couched as a professed concern with human rights, has a Corbynite feel. On other international issues, especially involving nondemocratic regimes hostile to U.S. foreign policy, the union consistently looks the other way.

The PSC struggled during the pandemic. New York’s state government did not fund the paltry 2-percent raise the union had negotiated for full-time faculty. Citing falling enrollments for the fall 2020 semester, CUNY chose not to rehire 2,800 part-time employees; the union’s legal effort to overturn the decision was laughed out of court. . . . The Gaza conflict provided a useful distraction to this tough stretch.

Coupled with a 2018 Supreme Court decision that ended the union’s practice of collecting dues from faculty regardless of whether they were members, the wave of resignations has left the PSC in a tenuous position.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.