With current controversies raging over school reopenings, mask requirements, and vaccination mandates for teachers, United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) will consider a resolution calling on the U.S. to end military aid to Israel, and supporting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement (BDS). The editors of the Los Angeles Times urge the union’s leaders to reject it:

One thing is for sure: . . . the world is hardly waiting to hear what a California teachers’ union thinks of the [Israel-Palestinian conflict].

Many Jewish parents and students—though not all by any means—see BDS support as inherently anti-Semitic. . . . They question why a movement targeting Israel receives [union] support when other nations have less religious tolerance and worse human-rights records. A vote to support BDS would be seen as hostile and undermine these families’ confidence in their teachers. Favoring BDS also would probably erode public support for the union in a metropolitan area with the second-biggest Jewish population in the U.S.

[Moreover], support for BDS wouldn’t accomplish a thing. The union would be better off keeping its nose out of Middle Eastern affairs that don’t affect its members or the schools, and in which it has no expertise.

Yesterday, the beepers used by hundreds of Hizballah operatives were detonated. Noah Rothman puts this ingenious attack in the context of the overall war between Israel and the Iran-backed terrorist group:

[W]hile the disabling of an untold number of Hizballah operatives is remarkable, it’s also ominous. This week, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant told reporters that the hour is nearing when Israeli forces will have to confront Iran’s cat’s-paw in southern Lebanon directly, in order to return the tens of thousands of Israelis who fled their homes along Lebanon’s border under fire and have not yet been able to return. Today’s operation may be a prelude to the next phase of Israel’s defensive war, a dangerous one in which the IDF will face off against an enemy with tens of thousands of fighters and over 150,000 rockets and missiles trained on Israeli cities.

Seth Frantzman, meanwhile, focuses on the specific damage the pager bombings have likely done to Hizballah:

This will put the men in hospital for a period of time. Some of them can go back to serving Hizballah, but they will not have access to one of their hands. These will most likely be their dominant hand, meaning the hand they’d also use to hold the trigger of a rifle or push the button to launch a missile.

Hizballah has already lost around 450 fighters in its eleven-month confrontation with Israel. This is a significant loss for the group. While Hizballah can replace losses, it doesn’t have an endlessly deep [supply of recruits]. This is not only because it has to invest in training and security ahead of recruitment, but also because it draws its recruits from a narrow spectrum of Lebanese society.

The overall challenge for Hizballah is not just replacing wounded and dead fighters. The group will be challenged to . . . roll out some other way to communicate with its men. The use of pagers may seem archaic, but Hizballah apparently chose to use this system because it assumed the network could not be penetrated. . . . It will also now be concerned about the penetration of its operational security. When groups like Hizballah are in chaos, they are more vulnerable to making mistakes.