Ln October 7, our personal and scientific lives were thrown into chaos. As academics, we are generally focused on our research, with the privilege of observing reality and politics from behind the scenes. It is true that academics have often been on the front lines defending freedom and human rights, but it is rare for life to be interrupted so abruptly, disrupted both physically and emotionally by geopolitical unrest.
That day, thousands of Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing innocent civilians along the way. The attack targeted participants in a peace music festival and devastated entire villages, methodically progressing from house to house, killing, raping, mutilating and burning alive innocent civilians, including babies, children and pregnant women, in a carefully planned barbaric attack. These monstrous acts resulted in at least 1,200 deaths and thousands of injuries. The terrorists also kidnapped and brought to the Gaza Strip more than 240 civilians, ranging from infants to women aged over 80.
Israel was caught off guard. This happened at a time when the country was particularly vulnerable, after almost a year of massive protests, with the main objective of the fight for democracy and liberalism. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have regularly demonstrated against the newly elected government and its judicial reform project. We were at the forefront of these efforts, alongside many other academics.
We are forced to defend ourselves
Let’s return to the present. Whatever our political vision of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, these events served as a wake-up call, including for the demonstrators against the government that we are, bearers of left-liberal values and supporting the recognition of the Palestinians. We now understand the scale of the atrocities lurking on our doorstep, and we cannot look away. In a modern society for which life is essential, this imminent threat to our families and communities cannot be accepted. We are forced to defend ourselves.
We are university professors in Israel. A geologist, a biologist, an electrical engineer and an atmospheric physicist who found themselves, overnight, in a completely different reality. We went from spending nights on conference calls with the European Space Agency and NASA studying Jupiter’s atmosphere to spending nights in the field with a [fusil d’assaut] M16; from theoretical work on data compression to the preparation of food supplies for the front; from studying genetics in zebrafish to long hours spent on maps and tactical planning; and from studying the geochemistry of millions of years old sediments to real-time combat operations.
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