紐時賞析／陷入兩難 企業老闆為何少對以巴戰爭表態？

Does the Boss Need to Weigh In on the War in the Middle East?

企業老闆需積極對中東戰爭表態嗎

After reading the details of Hamas’ attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, Brad Karp, who runs the law firm Paul, Weiss, sat at his computer and wrote a memo to his roughly 2,000 employees.

讀過哈瑪斯10月7日襲擊以色列的細節後，營運寶維斯法律事務所的卡普坐在電腦前，寫下一份給旗下約2000名員工的備忘錄。

He didn’t ask the firm’s spokesperson to draft it; he channeled his grief into a companywide email and hit send, just as he was moved to do after the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the killing of George Floyd. But as an American business leader condemning Hamas’ attacks, he said, he felt surprisingly lonely.

他沒有要求發言人起草備忘錄；他將自己的悲傷發洩在給全公司的電子郵件，並點擊發送鍵，就像他被推翻羅訴韋德案和佛洛伊德之死撼動後所做的一樣。但作為譴責哈瑪斯襲擊的美國企業領袖，他感到出奇孤獨。

“I was disappointed that fewer leaders than I anticipated spoke out emphatically, clearly and with moral clarity on this issue,” Karp said. “If you asked any of these leaders whether they were horrified by the slaughter of innocent civilians by Hamas, they would tell you privately that they were horrified.”

卡普說：「令我失望的是，在這個議題上堅決、明確帶有道德感發聲的領袖比我預期的少。如果你問這些領袖中的任何一位，他們是否對哈瑪斯屠殺無辜平民感到非常震驚，他們會私下告訴您，他們非常震驚。」

Company executives have, over the past month, faced a dilemma that they’re by now well practiced in confronting: whether to engage with a large humanitarian or social issue — in this case, the war between Israel and Hamas. This time, many say, responding — with a public statement, internal discussion, a donation or even social media parameters for staff members — presents complexities that they have not experienced when wading into other recent social crises.

公司主管在過去一個月面臨一個兩難困境，不過他們現在已經習於應對：是否要參與一個大規模人道和社會議題，這次事例是哈瑪斯與以色列之間的戰爭。許多公司主管說，這次以公開聲明、內部討論、捐款，甚至是員工社群媒體參數回應呈現的複雜性，是他們涉入近期其他社會危機時從未經歷過的。

“If you release a statement about the damage of a hurricane, there’s nobody who will say, ‘Actually, that area of the country deserved a hurricane,’” said Iliya Rybchin, a partner at the consultancy Elixirr, who has advised dozens of Fortune 500 CEOs.

諮詢公司「醫立赦」合夥人雷布欽曾接受數十名財星雜誌世界500強企業執行長諮詢。他說：「如果你發表一份關於颶風災損的聲明，沒有人會說，『事實上這是該國受災地區應得的』。」

More than 200 U.S. businesses have issued statements condemning the Hamas attacks in Israel that killed roughly 1,400 people, according to a tracker from Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management. Some business leaders made donations to humanitarian organizations and pointed their employees to company-sponsored mental health resources. A smaller number said they also communicated to their staff about the rising death toll of civilians in the Gaza Strip.

超過200間美國企業已發布聲明，譴責哈瑪斯在以色列發動襲擊，造成約1400人死亡。這項數據是由耶魯大學管理學院教授宋能菲爾德追蹤並提供。有些企業領袖向人道組織捐款，並推薦員工使用公司心理健康資源。少數人則說，他們也提供員工加薩走廊平民死亡人數上升的資訊。

Adding to the complexities that executives are weighing, many U.S. companies have financial ties to Israel, but few have business interests to consider in Gaza, Sonnenfeld noted.

宋能菲爾德指出，許多美國企業和以色列有財務聯繫，但很少有企業在加薩走廊有商業利益，加劇高階主管權衡時面臨的複雜性。

“No company does business in Gaza — as opposed to, say, in Russia, where there are 1,500 major companies doing business,” he said, comparing this war with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “It’s zero in Gaza.”

「沒有企業在加薩做生意，相較於俄羅斯，有1500間大企業在那邊做生意」，他將這場戰爭與俄國入侵烏克蘭對比，「在加薩是零」。

文／Emma Goldberg 譯／羅方妤