TThe topic of Palestine has been close to my heart for a long time and as an entrepreneur working with refugees and conflict-affected people through my company Humans in the Loop, I’ve always wondered what we could do to support Palestine.
Prior to the 2023 war on Gaza, we had spoken to local organizations like the amazing MENA Alliances or Gaza Sky Geeks but eventually we ended up deprioritizing Palestine in light of the large displacement crisis in Europe due to the invasion of Ukraine, and new pilots in Kenya and the DRC.
With so many locations and pilots, we were pressed to secure more clients. One day, one of our competitors reached out to me sharing that they were pivoting to another business model and they were looking for someone to pass their existing clients on to.
This was a pleasant surprise and I appreciated how the quasi-recession helped to consolidate our market and increase our market share, especially now that we had so many new employees asking for work.
After a review of their client list, it seemed that they only had one major client – and that client was from Israel. To be honest, I was very torn whether to accept it or not, given my political views. In fact, I had previously rejected plenty of leads and inquiries from Israeli companies, proudly announcing my participation in the BDS movement.
But since we were so pressed for more revenue, I took the decision to go ahead and start working with them, trying to think of it as “the end justifies the means.”
Fast forward to the current war in Gaza and I found myself in a complete contradiction: I was advocating for Palestine and going to protests, and yet there we were, working with an Israeli company. I felt like a complete hypocrite.
I quickly ended up messaging my team asking them to drop this client, knowing that we would lose 5% of our annual revenue. And thankfully they were fully supportive of the decision, and one of them even said that we shouldn’t have accepted to work with them in the first place.
This was my lesson is staying true to my values, even when tempted by an opportunity to earn revenue or secure funding. And this is part of what motivated me to start Entrepreneurs For Palestine: I want to support other founders and CEOs to make the difficult decisions and to stand up for what is right.
Iva Gumnishka
Today, my company is operating as usual and has quickly recovered the loss in revenue. We are in discussions about starting a pilot with Palestinian refugees in Egypt, and on a personal level I keep raising awareness and spreading the news about what is happening in Gaza and Palestine overall.
I know that for entrepreneurs like myself it can be hard to take a stance because you fear repercussions not only on yourself but also on your company and employees, especially if your company is venture funded or publicly traded. However, I am sure that the tradeoff is worth it and I am inspired by the brave people who choose to speak up.
In fact, looking back, what I regret is that I had my team speak to the client about ending our contract and I didn’t confront them directly, stating clearly that we were boycotting them due to their government’s actions in Gaza. This was a lost opportunity to make an impact not only by disengaging with Israeli businesses but also by putting pressure on them.
I am more and more convinced that we need to muster the courage and make it clear to Israeli citizens, even if they are long time clients, reliable partners, and good people in general, that they are part of a settler colonial project which needs to come to an end.
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