NYS Representatives Must Be More Aligned in Their Calls for a Cease-Fire in Gaza

A sign advocating for Rep. Pay Ryan to call for a cease-fire during a rally outside of Ryan's Raymond Avenue office in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Photo by Rebekah Hendricks '24

Six months have now passed since the beginning of the current war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and countless individual politicians, local and national, have demanded an immediate cease-fire. 

This includes many of New York State’s resident politicians, but there are varying degrees of what type of cease-fire they want and how they’ve been expressing their opinions (consisting mainly of posting on X, formerly Twitter). 

But there should only be one type of cease-fire they call for, no matter the side they lean to support: A permanent one.

Countless New York politicians and city councils have called for a temporary cease-fire since the conflict began on Oct. 7, 2023, according to City & State New York in an article that editor Peter Sterne published on Mar. 28, 2024. This includes Pat Ryan (NY-18), who represents Dutchess County in the House of Representatives, and Congresswoman Grace Meng (NY-6), representing Queens.

Many of those who have called for some sort of cease-fire have made their positions known mainly through X, but is that not too nonchalant of an approach to condemning all the acts of violence that have occurred in the last six months on either side? Because the militant group Hamas - not the Palestinian people - and the state of Israel have both committed varying levels of humanitarian atrocities that warrant more action than a simple but useless social media post.

However, there is a simple reason why politicians won’t take a more drastic approach to condemn the violence and insist on a permanent cease-fire, and it involves money.

A large source of support that candidates running for political offices have is the financial campaign contributions made by political action committees (PACs) whose objectives align with the policy stances of those who may be running. Countless PACs contribute to candidates who want their support by providing their limit per candidate, along with large bundles of individual contributions that they gather for who is running. 

One of these PACs is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which provided around $7.2 million in general contributions in the 2024 election cycle, as reported by OpenSecrets, a nonprofit research organization that focuses on tracking the flow of money in U.S. politics and elections. This places them as the 27th highest contributing PAC of the 2024 election cycle out of a total of 29,347. 

Tellingly, they were in Rep. Ryan’s top five PAC contributors to his campaign back in 2022.

If a PAC like the AIPAC is among your top contributors, you are more likely to keep yourself in their good graces to maintain support during a reelection campaign. So, in a political climate such as our current one, it may seem like the best move to not call for a permanent cease-fire, but for a temporary one, so that you work the middle ground between constituents and PAC contributors. 

That is, unless you want to run the risk of losing a major part of your campaign's funding and support, like how Rep. Jamaal Bowman (NY-16) lost the support of another pro-Israel group, J Street, after condemning the violence and labeling it a genocide, as stated in a press release by the PAC. 

Being wary of calling for a cease-fire is not just an issue among New York State representatives in Washington. Even the city of Poughkeepsie has yet to adopt any type of cease-fire resolution, as the Common Council voted and subsequently rejected “a non-binding resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza” on Mar. 19, 2024, as reported by the Mid Hudson News.

“There has been no clear consensus across the community,” Council Chairman Da’Ron Wilson said about the cease-fire resolution in the Common Council. Three council members abstained from voting, with one citing that they had been elected to care for matters pertaining to the city of Poughkeepsie, not “international skirmishes.” 

Choosing not to vote on a bill or resolution that many of your constituents and neighboring localities view as worthwhile will only take constituent and public trust away from the government you represent and whether you, as an elected official, are acting in the best interest of whom you are meant to be a spokesperson for. Why is it hard for the city of Poughkeepsie to join other Hudson Valley cities like Beacon and Newburgh in their advocacy efforts for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza? 

This is not a matter of keeping political campaign support or trying to stay out of issues that may not directly impact your city in a dire way; this is about calling out atrocities and crimes against humanity being committed on both sides and saying that you are on the side of humanity. 

Staying on the sidelines or trying to play both sides is not acceptable, and New York State officials need to realize this and come to a unanimous consensus for a permanent cease-fire.