We write to express our dismay at the United University Professor’s (UUP) March 2024 “Resolution on Palestine.” The resolution contains numerous inaccuracies, misleading representations and prejudicial characterizations. Aside from its legitimate reiteration of UUP’s commitment to academic freedom, the resolution’s subject matter itself lies almost entirely beyond the proper role of UUP as an advocate for faculty and staff. Moreover, the UUP statement invokes the support of a handful of Jewish groups in a way that is patronizing, tokenistic and deeply cynical — as if it speaks for all or most Jews.

The resolution refers to Israel’s war against Hamas as an “illegal act of collective punishment.” But no reputable international body, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ), has called into question Israel’s right to a military response to the heinous attack of Oct. 7 by Hamas, which not only murdered around 1,200 Israelis and non-Israelis, Jews and non-Jews, but kidnapped over 250 people, dozens of whom have since died in captivity. Hamas also engaged in sadistic rapes and mutilations on wide scale, leading some analysts to believe that it deployed a planned and systematic policy of sexual violence in its attack.

This is not a case of “collective punishment,” as the resolution alleges, but a war to defeat Hamas. Doing so inevitably entails degrading or dismantling its vast terrorist infrastructure, with Hamas operatives and weapons placed behind civilian human shields and its tunnels underneath schools, universities and hospitals, leading to the agonizing toll that the resolution decries. The thoroughgoing disabling of Hamas, the effective government of a territory lying at Israel’s very border, is a matter of Israel’s existential necessity. No country would tolerate such a mortal threat after experiencing an assault of this magnitude.

The resolution refers to the January 26 ICJ ruling but nowhere mentions that the ICJ has not called for a ceasefire, as is within its capacity. Presumably, had the Court believed that Israel was causing actual genocide, it would have called for a ceasefire. As elucidated by the think tank Perry House of the University of Pennsylvania, the Court instead ruled that as of yet, “there was no evidence that the war itself is causing genocide and, hence, that a ceasefire would be needed to prevent genocide.”

The resolution also fails to mention that the ICJ can only comment on the behaviors and intentions of state actors, and that it regards Hamas as a non-state actor and not subject to its rulings on genocide. Without a doubt Hamas is the party in this conflict guilty of genocide in terms of its willful, intentional murder of civilians and of its expressed intent to carry out further Oct. 7-style attacks, as expressed by Hamas official Ghazi Hamad when he boasted, “We Will Repeat the [Oct. 7] Attack Time and Again Until Israel Is Annihilated” — a statement that the resolution nowhere acknowledges.

The resolution refers to “the statements by leading figures in Israel’s government and military declaring the goals of population transfer, depopulation, collective punishment and eradication.” Yet these admittedly reprehensible statements do not reflect the actual policies of the Israeli government, specifically those of the war cabinet, which is solely responsible for determining the war’s execution. Its stated goals, as mentioned, are the defeat of Hamas and the return of the hostages, not the destruction of the Gazan population. This distinction between reckless comments made by cabinet ministers with no actual authority in determining military policy, on the one hand, and members of Israel’s war cabinet, on the other, has been widely reported in the press and reiterated in official statements of the Israeli, United States and other governments. And yet the resolution fails to make it.

Finally, the statement that “the Binghamton [University] chapter of [UUP] endorses the call for an immediate and lasting ceasefire” demonstrates a fundamental if commonplace ignorance of the real facts of the situation, specifically, that every recent ceasefire or ceasefire negotiation has been violated or scuttled by Hamas, not Israel. It was Hamas that destroyed the ceasefire long in operation before Oct. 7 with its horrific and unprovoked assault. It was likewise Hamas that violated the one successfully negotiated ceasefire in late November by failing to return the scheduled number of hostages agreed upon. Since then, Hamas has sabotaged every effort to produce a long-term ceasefire, including several negotiated by Israel, Egypt and Qatar during the last several months.

Indeed, it is Hamas that has long had the power to call a halt to the war that is afflicting the people of Gaza by returning all of the hostages and laying down its arms while removing its leadership far outside the Strip. But the Binghamton chapter’s resolution doesn’t even mention Hamas, let alone condemn its leaders, for their share of the responsibility for the deaths of so many innocent Jews and Palestinians.

The resolution blatantly obscures the magnitude of the crimes perpetrated against Israel and mischaracterizes the policy of its government in order to villainize the country. Stepping into an arena far removed from its proper sphere of concerns, the Binghamton chapter of the UUP has produced a shoddy and one-sided statement articulating a position antithetical to that of no small number of its members and has thereby abused the trust and confidence they have placed in it.

Note from authors — according to reports we received from several individuals who were present when the BDS resolution was debated and passed by the BU Student Association, proponents of BDS invoked this UUP resolution as evidence of faculty support for its goal of boycotting and divesting from Israel in a manner designed to strangle the country, further evidence of the Union E-Board’s reckless and dangerous action.

This guest column was written by the following guest authors. Allan Arkush, a professor of Judaic Studies, Alex Chase-Levenson, an associate professor of history, Rebecca Kahn, director of graduate and undergraduate marketing in the office of communications and marketing, Jonathan Karp, an associate professor of Judaic Studies and history and Andy Morris, senior associate director of enrollment and recruitment in the College of Community and Public Affairs.

Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the views of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the Staff Editorial.