The Middle
I’ve dreaded writing this post for a while, so please bear with me. As a CEO, I firmly believe business leaders should try to avoid taking a stand on political issues. Companies are a collective of different ideas and ideologies, and the last thing I want to do is espouse my beliefs and alienate my employees for theirs. I had a long record of never commenting on issues outside of work. That was broken following the death of George Floyd, broken again when Roe v. Wade was overturned, and I will break it now as I am compelled to do, given the state of the world, the state of our country, and the rise of antisemitism and the events surrounding the Israel/Hamas conflict.
Let me start with the latter.
I am a Jew and I support Israel – that is my orientation as an individual. I believe the events of Oct 7th were atrocious. I believe Israel and any sovereign nation has the right to defend itself and its citizens. I believe if the U.S. were attacked, we would respond aggressively. As I said, I stand with Israel.
That said, for the last 10 months, my heart has been broken watching the news night after night and seeing innocent civilians inside Gaza suffer from injury and death. Women and children and innocent civilians should never be victims of war. What’s going on in Gaza is heartbreaking and I want it to end. I also think Netanyahu is leading Israel into a moral abyss.
But I stand with Israel and support her right to exist, her right to defend herself, and her right to fight a terrorist organization who has, at every turn, been unequivocal in its desire to eradicate Israel from the face of earth. Calling Israel’s response (yes, response) to an unprovoked terrorist attack, in which 1200 people were killed and 250 more were taken hostage, “genocide,” demeans the very meaning of that word.
On October 7th, Hamas fired more than 3,000 rockets into Israel in a single day. Two sovereign powers at war is not genocide, even when one side is much stronger. German Jews in 1939 didn’t fire rockets at German soldiers, nor did the Tutsi civilians in Rwanda when they were slaughtered by Hutu militias. Neither fought back because neither had a military – no soldiers, no tanks, no rockets. Hamas is a military power – they just picked a fight with a larger military power who is not exercising restraint.
Personally, and at Tempus, I try to attack complex issues with unbiased critical thinking to ultimately seek truth. I see that approach and mindset degrading in our world today. We focus on emotion, on extremes, on headlines, and too often ignore facts. A fact is a “thing that is known to be true.” There are no alternative facts, just facts, and if we don’t ground ourselves in truth seeking, we will continue to talk past each other while fires continue to burn at best and fuel further fires at worst.
Politically, I’m a centrist. I’m middle of the road and I typically see both sides of an issue. I have instilled this form of critical thinking at my companies and believe it’s one of the reasons our culture is so strong today. We attack complex issues with unbiased critical thinking and seek the truth at all times – the truth based on facts.
Unfortunately, most complex issues, especially those that are emotionally charged, require this same approach. Answers are rarely black and white, often gray, and the best thing we can do when seeking the truth is have an open mind, listen, learn, and think.
These days I feel a bit like an endangered species. The far left and far right have consumed all the oxygen, and the idea that I might see the good and bad of both sides of an issue leaves me as much without a tribe, as it leaves our country in a state of constant political paralysis.
I consider myself an American first and foremost. Despite my religious upbringing, it is my central identity. And for a while, I was nothing but proud to be an American. This last decade has provided some sketchy moments and as our problems compound, I find myself more and more advocating for middle of road policies and politicians.
The Israeli/Hamas conflict, like many issues, is no different. You can see both sides. You can make both arguments. You can be deeply concerned about human suffering on both sides of the conflict. And as long as those arguments are informed, as long as people are listening and debating – in appropriate ways, at appropriate times, and appropriate places – the discourse is healthy. And through that discourse, I believe we can come up with lasting peaceful solutions to long-standing aggression and hatred.
At our annual sales conference, I gave two pieces of advice to our team that seem apropos today:
“Remember the basics and in uncertain times ground yourself in the fundamentals”
“When things get hard – work the problem. Get out your #2 pencil and do the math”
What historically made us stronger as Americans is that even when we didn’t agree, we respected each other and we respected that hard problems require hard solutions. Without respect for contrarian views, we live in an echo chamber of our own ideas. We live in the extremes, where we are always right and everyone else is always wrong. We live on the edge, instead of in the middle.
