Lessons in leadership: what the UK’s emerging leaders have learnt from Israel’s challenges, resilience and innovation.
In the aftermath of October 7th, the UK has seen a rapid rise in anti-Zionism and antisemitism across western democracies, most notably among Gen-z. A Harvard Harris poll found that 67 percent of 18-24-year-olds "think that Jews as a class are oppressors and should be treated as oppressors”. The events across Europe, post October 7, illustrate that Holocaust education has largely failed Gen-z; a generation consuming news through algorithm-driven social media, which empowers extremist views in echo-chambers, and where narratives are self-selecting and often one-sided. In this online vortex the state of Israel finds itself at the centre of deliberate and malign misinformation and misrepresentation.
This is why ELNET UK took a delegation of young emerging leaders on an educational mission to Israel. This group, comprised of senior political advisors, high-ranking civil servants, political analysts and private sector professionals, had the opportunity to engage with policymakers, military officials, historians, and entrepreneurs. They gained incredible and nuanced insights into Israel’s challenges and global contributions. A distinct feature of this delegation was the opportunity to hear a diverse range of perspectives across the expansive cultural, political and educational spectrum that Israel has to offer.
Resilience: The Reality of Israeli Security
The delegation began with a security briefing from the IDF’s spokesperson unit and a visit to Kibbutz Nir Oz and the Nova Festival Massacre site. This experience not only underscored the genocidal nature of the October 7 attacks, the mass trauma to Israeli society and its ongoing impact on every aspect of life in Israel; but also, the ongoing existential threat to Israel from Iran and its proxies. The delegation heard from a 20-year-old IDF soldier (an Observer at a post overrun by Hamas during the attacks) and a 21-year-old Nova survivor (who was attacked in a shelter, most of those with her in the shelter died during the onslaught); underscoring how the young in Israel bear a heavy responsibility and psychological burden from the impact of this tragedy and the ongoing war.
Innovation as a National Strategy
On the second day of the delegation, the group visited Start Up Nation Central (SNC), which connects Israel’s incredible tech ecosystem with investors, companies and anyone else that wants to understand and connect with tech in Israel. Their initiatives for ecosystem growth encourage cooperation beyond geographical boarders, boosting Israel’s economic resilience and long-term competitiveness. Israel is globally regarded as a hub for innovation and entrepreneurship, with high levels of investment in sectors like technology, AI, fintech and cyber security. In 2023 high-tech products held nearly 20% of Israel’s GDP. In the spirit of resilience, Israel’s tech firms since October 7, despite the ongoing war, raised $9 billion, only behind Silicone Valley and New York. The emerging leaders experienced how Israel, through organisations like SNC, have embraced innovation as a national strategy, creating a connected ecosystem of innovation, collaboration and a culture that encourages risk taking and resilience. Israel’s high tech success story is one of necessity economically, diplomatically and militarily. The delegation found many useful lessons for the UK in how we could access international markets, and strategic R&D investment to build tech entrepreneurship and drive sustained economic growth.
Learning from the Past to Lead the Future
A visit to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial and research centre, served as a reminder of how we must use history to help shape our future. This experience reinforced how holocaust education in the West must go beyond merely remembrance and serve as a responsibility to actively tackle discrimination and misinformation. A failure to remember this in Western society has allowed antisemitic narratives to resurface under the guise of political activism; this rhetoric has been repackaged and delivered through social media. Effective Holocaust education is not merely about sympathy towards the historical Jewish experience, but also the criticality of instilling critical thinking, historical literacy and recognition of how extremist ideologies (through propaganda) can break into mainstream thinking. Delegates drew parallels from the propaganda weaponised against Jews in the years leading up to Holocaust and the narratives parroted on university campuses in the UK today. The dehumanisation and scapegoating of the Jewish people, through dangerous blood libels, are consistent themes between the pre-Holocaust propaganda across Europe, and the misrepresentation of antisemitism as political activism present in modern Europe today.
Diversity and Coexistence
As part of their commitment to gain insight into the full complexities surrounding Israeli society and the wider conflict, the group met with Arab Israeli Ibrahim Abu Ahmed (geopolitical analyst and co-existence activist). This provided the delegation with a deeper understanding of the experience of Arab citizens of Israel. He challenged the simplistic narratives of victims and oppressors often regurgitated throughout the West, by using his lived experience. Ibrahim spoke openly about both the challenges and opportunities facing Arab citizens of Israel. He emphasised that like other liberal democracies, while inequalities exist, the notion of apartheid in this context is simply untrue. Ibrahim advocates for better language education (all Israelis to learn Arabic) to better integrate the diverse Israeli communities with one another, and to remove barriers to co-existence. The perspective, presented through Ibrahim’s evaluation of his lived experience, stood in stark contrast to the one-dimensional portrayals often presented in international discourse, where Israeli Arabs are often spoken about rather than to. It was illustrated that although not perfect, co-existence is not just a utopian dream but a daily reality in Israel, that requires effective commitment, compromise and leadership from all sides. The lessons that could be brought back to the UK, were the importance of resisting the binary categorisation of groups into victims and oppressors and working against division to build bridges between diverse communities.
Bringing the Lessons Home
The delegation’s experience in Israel provided them with invaluable lessons that can be brought home to the UK; namely the importance of resilience, innovation, historical literacy and social cohesion (the importance of which, for Israel, is driven by constant existential threat). These lessons underscore the importance of a strategic relationship between the UK and Israel, based our shared democratic values. It is also worth noting that our delegation was a group of emerging leaders, diverse in every way - religion, ethnicity, gender and so on – what is remarkable and uniform about them is their curiosity and willingness to discover Israel for themselves; their courage to do so marks them out as emerging leaders. Their insights into Israel and the wider debate regarding the conflict and the Middle East is now grounded in the reality of having been there – a lesson for many others, especially Gen-z who may only have learnt about Israel through the unreality of social media.