The union representing CUNY professors has passed a one-sided resolution rebuking Israel for recent attacks on Palestinians — adding that it may support the movement to boycott and divest from the Jewish state.
The Professional Staff Congress’ resolution conspicuously omits any mention of Hamas launching rockets into residential areas of Israel during last month’s confrontations between the warring sides.
Instead, the resolution says, “PSC-CUNY condemns the massacre of Palestinians by the Israeli state’’ — while decrying Israel’s “expansionism and violent incursions into occupied territories.”
PSC-CUNY “cannot be silent about the continued subjection of Palestinians to the state-supported displacement, occupation, and use of lethal force by Israel,’’ the missive says.
It adds that the Palestinian struggle for “self determination” is akin to the struggles of “indigenous people and people of color in the United States” and blacks in apartheid South Africa.
The statement drew outrage within and outside the City University of New York.
Jeff Wiesenfeld, who served as a CUNY governing-board trustee from 1999 to 2013, told The Post, “I resolve to condemn the racist, anti-Semitic and academically useless PSC of CUNY, which serves only to poison the minds of future leaders inside and outside the classroom and thus further degrade a CUNY degree to its former state of complete devaluation.”
Wiesenfeld said the union’s statement ignores facts such as the Palestinian leadership rejecting land-for-peace deals with Israel and the Jewish state being surrounded by enemies and having a right to defend itself.
Long Island GOP Congressman Lee Zeldin, who is running for governor, said in a statement posted on Twitter, “The City University of New York (CUNY) educators who just passed this insane pro-BDS resolution accusing Israel of a massacre of Palestinians, shouldn’t have any ability at all to brainwash students, especially in a publicly funded university.”
Brooklyn College history Professor KC Johnson told The Post that the PSC doesn’t speak for many teachers.
Johnson called the resolution “sad and predictable” and said the union is obsessed with “finding ways to condemn Israel” while ignoring atrocities elsewhere.
One CUNY insider said that if one of the school system’s students submitted such a resolution as a paper for a current events project, the work would deserve an F for being incomplete for excluding key material facts.
“It make no mention that there were missiles launched from Gaza into Israel’s towns and villages,’’ said the CUNY source, who requested anonymity, of PSC’s resolution.
“It’s incredibly one-sided. It’s not right.’’
The resolution includes a line claiming that the PSC “condemns racism in all forms, including anti-Semitism” — while contending that criticisms of the Jewish State of Israel “are not inherently anti-Semitic.”
It even blasted the US labor movement for “failing to challenge the U.S. government’s support for Israeli expansionism and violent incursions in the occupied territories.’’
The PSC said that this fall, it will “facilitate discussions … and consider PSC support of the 2005 call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS).”
The union described BDS as “a movement launched by 170 Palestinian unions, refugee networks, women’s organizations, professional associations and other Palestinian civil society organizations, which calls on people of conscience in the international community to act as they did against apartheid South Africa in the spirit of international solidarity, moral consistency and resistance to injustice and oppression.”
PSC President James Davis defended the anti-Israel resolution.
“The Professional Staff Congress has a long history of both successfully fighting to improve the working conditions of our members and advocating within the labor movement against racism and for international solidarity,” Davis said.
“We are opposed to all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism, and we condemn the displacement, occupation, and violence perpetrated by the Israeli state against Palestinians.
“The resolution adopted by the delegates will facilitate discussion among our members of initiatives and campaigns that seek to influence the United States policy of support for Israel.”
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