Tony Frank: On standing on the eve of war

Human words, no matter how well constructed, fail us in trying to capture the complexity of emotion released by the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7. The moral clarity of that moment already blurs against the specter of a humanitarian crisis, and our minds search for some perspective with which to frame our thinking, only to find a complexity that defies explanation, let alone wisdom. Yes, the roots of any conflict as ancient as this one are tangled, with a long history of grievances. Yes, history shows that the human response to such a horrific tragedy often compounds the suffering, adding to the tragedy, and causing us to review the arithmetic around 2 wrongs and 1 right. And we can know with certainty that experts in appropriate subject matter areas will lead legitimate debates about any number of topics leading to and stemming from the horrible events of October 7.

But debates, while they may inflame our blood, do not kill. And on October 7, when Hamas made the decision to replace debate with the murder of innocent civilians because of their race and religion, it lit the match on the fuse of the latest round of Middle East violence.

I am not the expert to tell you when or how this will end. Indeed, I’m left offering you only my hopes that we, as a set of academic communities, can remain united in caring for each other and trying to heal the indiscriminate physical and mental wounds this senselessness has inflicted on so many. That’s been the focus of our campuses, as it should be. Taking steps to assure the safety of all students, creating spaces for people to process grief and anger, providing the opportunity for us to see past labels and find common ground in our shared humanity – these are not trivial accomplishments; they are yeoman’s work – and our campuses have carried it out in exemplary fashion. Our campus communities stand united and unwavering in rejecting antisemitism and Islamophobia.

And that still leaves us here; standing on the precipice of whatever events will spawn from the actions of October 7. We still are left trying to make sense of senselessness.

As Israel processes her grief and we grieve with her, reservists are taking up arms and offering what Lincoln called “that last, full measure of devotion” to defend something greater than themselves. Across a line on a map, Palestinians unaffiliated with Hamas prepare to offer their lives to try to protect their children. We can reject antisemitic terrorism and still honor the humanity of innocent civilians; we can reject antisemitic terrorism and still grieve the tragedy and loss of any innocent life. It may be, as Tim O’Brien wrote in “The Things They Carried,” that war is never moral; that war must be explained “by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.” And if that’s true, looking for sense among the senselessness is a fool’s errand. But I think there are truisms that we can, and indeed, I believe, we must, speak out loud if only so we hear each other say them and remind us to be accountable to them: