[075] Breaking the Silence: How to Engage in Difficult Conversations About Israel & Palestine

Trigger Warning:
This episode discusses sensitive topics related to the October 7th 2023 attack on Israel and the ongoing conflict in Palestine, including violence, displacement, oppression and genocide. If you find these topics distressing, please prioritise your well-being and use your discretion as to how much to tune into.
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In this episode of The Modern LeadHer Way, I dive deep into a topic that has been weighing heavily on my heart—the situation in Gaza and the broader context of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Join me as I explore the importance of using our voices to take a stand and speak out for humanity.

Throughout this episode, I share my personal journey of finding the courage to engage in hard conversations and the internal struggles that accompany speaking my truth. I reflect on the historical context of the conflict, touching upon key events that have shaped the past and the present.

Key Highlights:

• The significance of knowing, liking, and trusting yourself as a leader.
• The courage to share difficult truths and stand for what matters.
• A brief history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, including the Balfour Declaration, the Nakba, and the formation of the State of Israel.
• Current events unfolding in Gaza, including the devastating impact on the Palestinian population and the importance of compassionate leadership.

As we move forward, I encourage you to explore your own beliefs and consider how you can use your platform for positive change.

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Transcript

Automatically Transcribed With Podsqueeze

Emma Clayton, Host 00:00:01  This is the Modern Lead Howay the podcast for corporate career women who want to feel good on their way to the top. I'm Emma Clayton and I'll be sharing with you tangible advice to help you stop sacrificing your soul in the name of success and experience more balance, confidence, and fulfillment both in and out of work. Hello and welcome back to the Modern Lead Away podcast, where we're getting a bit serious for the rest of January. And that's very intentional because I've had something weighing very heavy on my heart. I wanted to get off my chest, and it's taken a while for me to feel brave enough to have the conversation that I wanted to bring to you as my faithful listener. So thank you, as always, for being here. I have always spoken quite openly about the fact that this journey of becoming the modern leader is all about knowing yourself, liking yourself, trusting yourself, but then also knowing what you stand for and being able to take a stand by using your voice of influence and to have an impact in the world.

Emma Clayton, Host 00:01:11  Right? That's what we're here for. We're not here just to slope our way through, like make our way through life by hook or by crook, just by fluke even. We're here to make an impact. We're here to have an influence in this lifetime. And that this is the modern lead away. And it comes with all sorts of challenges. And I'm not saying it's easy, and I've personally been on my own journey of actually understanding what it is that I want to use my voice for, and actually use the platform of social media or a podcast to share and then translate that back into how you in your role, whether that's in corporate, whether that's in your own business, can actually like do some of this yourself. Right? So I've worked very tirelessly for the last seven years on understanding where my kind of trauma comes from when it comes to actually using my voice, and how I can overcome some of the limitations that I've found myself in front of. And I have worked with coaches, and indeed in the last 12 months I've worked with Keri Russell, who is all about self-expression and really just like getting your voice out there in the world and moving through the kind of sludge as and when it comes up and actually carry is going to be on the podcast in February as we continue this kind of voice, get this voice series, if you like, that we're moving into now.

Emma Clayton, Host 00:02:49  So the thing that's been heavy on my heart is something that I've realized I stand for quite strongly, which is having a view on things that are happening in the world that I wouldn't have necessarily had a view on before, because I wouldn't have had the energetic capacity to look at it, to actually turn towards it and understand what's going on, because it felt too uncomfortable, too much to, all consuming to emotionally draining to even look at. And that is what's going on in Gaza with the Palestinian population being oppressed and basically ethnically cleansed by the Israeli military. And this is something that even as I start talking about, I can feel a lot of congestion in my chest and like, feelings and icky stuff that's coming up that's like literally traveling up to my throat. And I share this with you, because this is what happens when we start to speak our truth, when we start to share a view or opinion on something that may not be popular, we start to internally experience it through our feelings and sensations and emotions.

Emma Clayton, Host 00:04:07  And what's happening inside me now is it feels uncomfortable. But it's also something that I'm aware of because every time I've gone to speak my truth in the last however many years I've come up against this time and time again, and I have an understanding of where it comes from, like way back to childhood, even, as a child being told, you know, little girls are to be seen and not heard and to say your p's and q's and all these things like they all add up to make you who you are as a grown up. Right? And then those things, those experiences that you have when you're younger, they get kind of trapped inside of you. And therefore, when I'm experiencing this now, it's basically something that happened when I was younger that I suppressed and locked in place, that is creeping out to say, oh, hello. I'm not sure this is really something we want to do right now. And I share this just to say that if you ever experience those uncomfortable feelings and sensations, wherever they are in your body, when you go to speak up, when you go to share an opinion, when you raise your hand around a meeting table, when you sitting there thinking about what you want to share, and you're convincing yourself in your mind that actually you don't have anything valuable to share and you should really shut up.

Emma Clayton, Host 00:05:28  I'm sharing it so that you know you're not alone. And this is perfectly normal. Yet it doesn't have to be your normal state of being. And you get to work through these things. And this is what I want you to know, is that if I can work through some of this stuff to talk about it now on a podcast that's an international platform that could come across Anyone's is. You can too, and I'm here to support you in doing that. So what we're going to do over the next two episodes after today is I am going to share with you a beautiful conversation that I facilitated with three women who I respect and admire deeply, who are doing amazing work in the world, who share a philosophy of life, that every life is a value. And no one, regardless of race, age, sex, religion, color deserves to live more than the next person. This is pro-life, like we are here for the love of humanity, right? And we have a shared like compassion, I think, for human beings and what makes us who we are are all the things that happened to us Master the journey we go on through life that equals the person we are today.

Emma Clayton, Host 00:06:57  Either before we decide to work on ourselves and to unravel some of that, or unbecoming, as I call it, or whether that's just like in our rawest form, have no awareness around, you know, where that comes from. But this is me. We have a lot of compassion as a collective, the four of us for humans. And you are going to hear that throughout this conversation. Now, we had a just under a 90 minute conversation, which I've edited today and split it into two because it is a big conversation and, it, you know, it goes deep. We really do talk about not just what's going on, what are we seeing unfolding on our screens, whereas some of the conflicting, even misinformation coming from the media, why does this sort of thing happen? Like where is it coming from and why do we see such conflict in the world? We go probably in the first year. The first sort of actually, it's about 40 minutes. We're really looking at the media and the role that's played in terms of like creating sides that you feel like you have to sit on maybe, but also like the misinformation and, and all those kind of things.

Emma Clayton, Host 00:08:15  So we're getting to that in deep in the first part. And in the second part, we actually switch it into like, what can we do about it? Now we've kind of got this awareness about what's going on and how we might not always been fed the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from the media. Shock, horror. What can we do? What is within our power as women with hearts, with a platform and a voice? As leaders? What can we do to take a stand, to decide? Like where do I stand in terms of things like this are going on in the world, and then how do I want to use my privilege and my power to do something with that? Okay. So we move that into that, into the second half, which will happen in part three. And what I want to give you in this short episode is just a bit of history. If you're not sure, if you're not really tuned in to what is going on with Israel and Gaza, but you're curious, or you're just open to hearing another kind of more factual overview of what's going on than perhaps you've been fed on the news mainstream.

Emma Clayton, Host 00:09:31  Then stay tuned. I'm going to give you what I've found out through my research over the last year or so, through looking for the facts, for looking for an unbiased view and then pulling all that together. And that will really set the tone for going into this conversation that we're going to have. And overarching all of this is this idea that we we need to stand for something, right? We like we need to decide what it is that we stand for as leaders. Otherwise people are never going to follow. There could be looking to us to lead them somewhere and actually be like walking around in the dark if we don't know what we stand for. And not just on world matters of conflict and things like that, but just life, right? Day to day matters. So stay tuned now for the history lesson. If you like the brief history lesson, and I will see you next week for the first part in the two part conversation with the three lovely ladies that you're going to meet and, check out the show notes for the resources.

Emma Clayton, Host 00:10:44  This does need to come with a trigger warning. So this next few episodes does have distressing topics of conversation. So we talk about war and violence and trauma and rape and distressing things that we're seeing coming out of the media. So if you need to have some support in that, then please do seek it. Use your discernment as to whether or not this is something you want to dive into, but know that we have. We are coming at it from a very compassionate, not one sided way, but certainly in terms of we are here and we are about love for humanity and what we can do to make a positive change in this world for our kids and our kids kids. Right. So thank you for being here. Keep in mind that this is not meant to sway you one way or another. There are no sides to be had here. We are not saying Israelis, Is Jewish or bad people. We are not saying you should be pro-Palestinian. This is really just taking a stance and a stand on basic human rights, and to serve as food for thought.

Emma Clayton, Host 00:11:59  For anyone that has found it very uncomfortable to know where they stand, and hopefully give you enough pointers and resources that you can go and make your own mind up on where you stand on this. All right, so with that in mind, let's get into it. Okay, so my understanding of the history has come from a number of different sources. And what I've done is with the ladies that you're going to meet next week, over the next couple of episodes, on the roundtable that I held, we have together pulled a resource list of podcasts or people to follow that are on the ground reporting from Gaza, from the West Bank media figures and also just local heroes as we would definitely see them today. to go follow on Instagram books that you can read from well-known authors, from historians and other resources. And if it's something that I have taken my knowledge from, I have just referred to it as a source for this episode in that resource list. So you'll find that in the show notes. And what I really recommend is if this has piqued your interest or like giving you a reason to go and make up your own mind about this, then I encourage you to do your own research.

Emma Clayton, Host 00:13:24  So we've given you a list of trusted resources and yeah, encourage you to do that. So I guess I had an awareness of Israel because through my 20 year corporate career, we would always had offices in Israel. We had an employee presence there. We had clients that came from there, and I guess my first surprise was that Israel was not always a recognized state. And actually it was only formed in 1948. So leading up to that, Palestine was largely inhabited by largely Arabs but some Jews until 1917, whereas under the Ottoman Empire, that was until the Brits came under control following World War One. Now another thing I hadn't appreciated was Zionism, or the Zionist movement was actually formed at the end of the 19th century. And this is where some Jewish people felt that they really had a right to a homeland, a nation that they could call their own. And so, under the Balfour Declaration of 1917, British gave support for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for Jewish people. And so it's following that that there was an immigration gradually over time of Jewish people to Palestine.

Emma Clayton, Host 00:14:48  And then obviously after World War two, with the mass injustice that happened during the Holocaust, more and more Jewish people were immigrating to Palestine. And what do they do when they get there? They they need somewhere to live. And there was increasing unrest between the Palestinian people who had lived on the land for generations, who had homes and were coming under increasing pressure to give over some of that land to share that land. So in 1947, the British kind of washed their hands of it and handed it over to the UN, who came up with this partition plan, proposed splitting Palestine into independent Jewish and Arab states, which was actually accepted and celebrated by the Jewish leaders but rejected by the Arab leaders. And at this point, one source said that 56% of the land had been given to 32% of the Jewish population, which already, to me doesn't sound fair at all. Then what happened in 1948 was that there was a declaration for the State of Israel, and this led to what the Palestinian people called the Nakba, or catastrophe, which resulted in the displacement of over 700,000 Palestinians, leaving them homeless and landless.

Emma Clayton, Host 00:16:13  And that's before you consider that another 300,000 or so were murdered brutally by Israeli forces. By the time they'd finished, the new state of Israel covered 78% of Palestine, and the remaining 22% comprised the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. It was later in the 1967 war that the Israeli military occupied those territories and began colonising shortly afterwards by violent, repressive military rule, dividing and isolating Palestinian communities into easily controlled ghettos surrounded by walls and Israeli military checkpoints. Since the early 2020s has been a growing consensus among human rights groups and other experts, including the world's highest court, the International Court of Justice, that Israel's racist system of oppression of the Palestinian people amounts to apartheid. Echoing what Palestinians have been saying for decades. As noted by Amnesty International in its 2021 report, Israel's apartheid against Palestinians Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity, they quote, and I quote. Israel has established and maintained an institutionalized regime of oppression and domination of the Palestinian population for the benefit of Jewish Israelis. A system of apartheid, wherever it has exercised control over Palestinians Live since 1948.

Emma Clayton, Host 00:17:38  Amnesty international concludes that the State of Israel considers and treats Palestinians as an inferior, non-Jewish racial group. The segregation is conducted in a systematic and highly institutionalized manner through laws, policies, and practices, all of which are intended to prevent Palestinians from claiming and enjoying equal rights to Jewish Israelis within the territory of Israel and within the occupied Palestinian territories, and thus are intended to oppress and dominate the Palestinian people. Now, of course, let's rewind a little bit to the 1980s, where the Palestinian militant group Hamas was formed in 1987. The US State Department designated Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization in October 97th, and later became the de facto governing body in the Gaza Strip in 2007 or since 2007. Hamas is committed to armed resistance against Israel and to the creation of a Palestinian state, and the group has engaged in several rounds of violent conflict with Israel, the most recent being on the 7th of October, when Hamas launched a massive surprise attack against Israel, killing nearly 1200 people, injuring hundreds more and taking 250 Israelis captive as hostage.

Emma Clayton, Host 00:18:58  Now, obviously, the attacks on October 7th were brutal and absolutely tragic and have been well documented by the Western media. And since that fatal day, Israel has launched a full scale ongoing attack, initially on the Gaza Strip, moving to the West Bank and also into parts of Lebanon. Now, recent figures from the Gaza Health Ministry show that 45,500 people, including at least 17,500 children, is the number that have been killed and identified. This number includes at least 201 journalists and media workers, and at least 151 Palestinian health care workers and 363 aid workers. So it really does give the sense that there is an indiscriminate attack on the people of Gaza. But it is shockingly thought that the number is probably more likely to be in excess of 220,000 Palestinians who have been killed through bombing, gunfire, manmade famine and disease, which is thought to be a conservative estimate using the Lancet indicator. And ultimately, there is currently no way to know the true extent of how many have been killed as Israel has decimated Gaza's health system.

Emma Clayton, Host 00:20:21  Latest figures also show that documented attacks have been on at least 92% of homes, 93% of school buildings, 80% of commercial facilities, 79% of mosques, 156 hospitals and clinics, and 68% of cropland, all of which have been damaged or completely destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. And more concerning than ever is that there are currently no fully functioning hospitals in northern Gaza. Following Israel's forced evacuation of Kamal Adnan Hospital on December 26th. The situation currently really is, dire. I could go on, but I won't. Like I said, all of this information is freely available to you and through the resources list that you'll find in the show notes. So I think just to say, on a very personal note, whilst what happened on October 7th was horrendous and horrific and you would not wish that on anyone, anyone. What has been happening to the Palestinian people, not just since October 7th, but indeed for the last 70 odd years, is also unimaginable. And yet the world watches or turns a blind eye. And I think this is when you start to go.

Emma Clayton, Host 00:21:41  Hang on a minute. I don't want to turn a blind eye anymore. But honestly, what can little old me sitting here in the comfort of my home in the UK really do? And that is why I wanted to bring this discussion about what can we do and how can we have compassion for all beings. Right. And so I hope it serves you to give you some things to think about, to hopefully resonate with some things and actually make up your own mind about where you stand on all of this. So there is more I could say, but I will leave that to you and your own research, and I will close this here and invite you back next week for the first part of a two part conversation with the ladies that I have around the table. And I really do welcome you to give me any comments, thoughts, feelings about what's being discussed here today and over the next couple of weeks. And I just really appreciate your openness to be in this conversation. And to just question for yourself, what is it that you do stand for and how will you use your voice moving forward? So with that, I thank you for being here.

Emma Clayton, Host 00:23:01  Thank you for listening. And until next week, take care.