Good morning, Peter Vanham here in Geneva, filling in for Alan.
As the Israel-Hamas war escalates, with thousands of Israelis and Gazans dead or injured and hundreds of thousands of civilians in harm’s way, how should business leaders respond?
I asked a few business leaders, and there was no consensus. The most common suggestion was to speak up and empathize with employees—and to stay away from politics and social media.
“If a corporation felt it was inappropriate to stand out against terrorists during 9/11 or speak out against gross atrocities or injustices in any other prior context, then it can be excused from speaking out. If [not], then it has a moral responsibility to stand by its Jewish employees and consumers.”
—Daniel Lubetzky, founder of Kind Snacks and Peaceworks (a company that works with Israelis and Palestinians)
“If you don’t speak up and frame the conversation, you leave all the others to react. The frame for this has to be, 'I as a human being, speak to you as a friend, and not a boss. And I put my arms around you, and say, this is not humanity.' Try and stay away from the politics...This is a time...to see people.”
—Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman
Jim Snabe, chairman of Siemens, told me that he's leaving X as a result of the hate and misinformation spread on the social media platform in the past few weeks. “It is sad to see how hate is amplified on a platform that could be the place for dialogue and solutions,” he said.
Other business leaders suggested donating and matching employee donations to organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is calling for corporate contributions amid the worsening humanitarian crisis.
But it’s easy to get the balance wrong. I polled some international employees from U.S. multinational companies, and they were critical of what they consider U.S. business leaders' ignorance on the matter at hand.
“Corporate America is still so U.S.-centric,” one of them told me. “These are, at the end of the day, people who consume U.S. news that reports in a certain way.”
“I have many friends who are disappointed by CEO statements that seem uninformed and missing context,” another said. “This is a huge problem for corporate leaders as they weigh in.”
I’ll dive deeper into this topic in tomorrow’s Impact Report. You can sign up for that newsletter here.
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Peter Vanham
peter.vanham@fortune.com
@petervanham
