Last week, Elisha Weisel reported in the WSJ that Barack Obama was awarded an honorary degree from Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland.

Which brings up the matter of styles. Elisha Weisel, the son of Elie Weisel, notes how President Trump speaks in graffiti: loud, everywhere, often painted over by morning, preserved in a presidential library.

Mr. Obama speaks in textbook prose. Allowing Obama’s sentences to be quoted and received as considered judgment.

Obama’s remarks, centered on the land:

“They took land off people, and they were excessive. And those people understandably said, ‘This is injustice and I want my land back.’ ”

“Understandably” demanding are more words that trouble Junior Weisel. Understanding Palestinian grievances isn’t the same as excusing Hamas, and Mr. Obama knows the difference. But words have consequences, Weisel’s son continues.

Elisha Weisel then considers the word “excessive,” asking whether it is excessive for Jews to buy land, at fair or often inflated prices, from absentee landlords in Beirut and Damascus who were glad to sell malarial swamps.

“Is it excessive to want to live in peace?”

That is why words travel far and wound deeply, continues young Weisel.

A careless sentence from a careful man isn’t heard as careless.

Words led to 7 October 2023. There can be no misunderstanding of Hamas’s ambitions.

Leaders have since vowed to do it again and again until Israel is gone.

There can and should be no undetanding of those ambitions.