War is on the agenda in Davos, but the focus is elsewhere

Each day this week brought a new and fleeting reminder to executives and politicians at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting of the two wars that threaten global security and cloud the economy. The Ukrainian president spoke on Tuesday. Israel spoke on Thursday.

Neither was able to hold the collective attention of a gathering that has overwhelmingly focused this year on artificial intelligence and populist politics.

Gaza and Ukraine are on the public agenda every day in Davos, along with climate change and economic inequality. But in the hot halls and muddy streets surrounding the city, conversations almost inevitably turn to the two accelerating trends that are destabilizing business models and democracies.

Everyone wants to talk about how AI and this year's elections, especially in the United States, can shake up the world. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, the October 7 attacks on Israel led by Hamas or the subsequent Israeli bombardment of Gaza? Drowned in comparison.

“No one is talking about Israel,” said Rachel Goldberg, who came to Davos to urge action to free the more than 100 hostages captured on October 7 and still held by Hamas, including her 23-year-old son. , Hers.

In an interview on Wednesday, Ms. Goldberg said she was not surprised that the war had taken a back seat here. “I think it's complicated,” she said. “And I think it's very polarizing.”

Davos is a lot of things stacked on top of each other. It is a source of prosperous idealism, with the phrase 'dedicated to improving the state of the world' often adorning the walls of its main meeting center.

The forum is a networking event where top executives, world leaders, celebrities, philanthropists and journalists speed date during half-hour coffee meetings. It is a trade fair for big ideas, with overlapping panel discussions on topics such as gender equality, media misinformation and the transition to green energy.

It is also a place where top government officials can speak about serious issues, including war. That's where much of the discussion about Gaza and Ukraine has been this week.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine called for international aid – but not more weapons – for hundreds of people in a bombshell speech on Tuesday. He then also answered questions from reporters.

Without more help from the United States and others, Mr. Zelensky said, “there will be a huge crisis.” He added: “We have a war now and we are going to have a huge crisis – a crisis for the whole of Europe.”

Several leaders spoke about Gaza and the broader conflict it has created in the Middle East, although usually to smaller groups. Mohammad Mustafa, the chairman of the Palestine Investment Fund and the former deputy prime minister of Palestine, appealed to a room of about 60 people on Wednesday for additional international aid for the people of Gaza and an end to the war.

“The military action must stop very quickly,” Mustafa said. “There is no need for anyone to build their political career at the expense of more Palestinian people.”

Hossein Amir Abdollahian, Iran's foreign minister, blamed Israel for raising tensions in the Middle East in recent months. “If the genocide in Gaza ends, it will lead to the end of the other crises and attacks in the region,” he said.

In his speech Thursday, Israel's President Isaac Herzog called Iran the center of an “evil empire” destabilizing the Middle East and showed a photo of Kfir Bibas, a 1-year-old hostage being held in Gaza. “We have a very cruel, sadistic enemy who has made the decision to try to torture the Israeli national psyche and the hostages themselves,” Mr. Herzog said.

But those speeches rarely dominated the conversations on the sidelines of the event, at the late-night private dinners after the day's agenda concluded or in most of the storefronts that big companies paid to transform into branded events along the city's main boulevard.

One possible explanation: Participants and leaders here do not currently view either war as a significant threat to the global economy. Neither Gaza nor Ukraine made it into the Top 10 short-term concerns Global Risk Report – a survey of 1,500 world leaders – which the forum published on the eve of the meeting. A World Economic Forum report from the leading economists published this week suggested that growth forecasts for the Middle East had been “somewhat weakened” amid uncertainties over the war between Israel and Hamas. Ukraine was not mentioned.

In private conversations around Davos this week, business leaders acknowledged the wars in Gaza and Ukraine as among many concerns. But they became much more enthusiastic about other topics that they said they expected would impact their businesses in the near term — potentially hugely, for better or worse.

AI topped that list. In interviews, managers explained the advantages and disadvantages of the technology, usually with great enthusiasm. They also talked at length about politics. During the dinner, she and other attendees debated whether former President Donald J. Trump would win back the White House in November — and how his populist, protectionist policies could roil markets and upend their business models.

Some executives explicitly placed Gaza and Ukraine lower on their list of geopolitical issues than the US elections.

Many attendees lamented that there wasn't more energy behind war discussions, or that there wasn't more energy behind war discussions, or that there wasn't more energy behind the risks that wars pose to the economy and global security. Last year, concerns about Ukraine were the focus of the meeting, along with a surge of interest in AI.

This year “everyone is focusing on different topics,” Pascal Cagni, France's ambassador for international exports, said in an interview. Economically and politically, he added, Ukraine is “a critical issue.”

There were a few exceptions. Supporters of Ukraine opened their own retail space on the main promenade and organized several events every day to draw attention to the conflict. The technology company Palantir and its CEO, Alex Karp, hosted Ms. Goldberg and other parents of hostages for events and interviews.

Several governments sent leaders to Davos in an effort to quietly advance backchannel diplomacy in Ukraine or Gaza. That was true of the Biden administration, which sent Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan to Davos for a series of meetings around Gaza.

In an interview on Wednesday, Ms. Goldberg said she was grateful for all the efforts to bring her son and the other hostages home. She wore “103” taped to her sweater, which represented the number of days since her son was kidnapped.

In Davos, Ms. Goldberg shared a house with other parents of hostages. “I walked outside this morning and here you have beautiful views and beautiful mountains,” she said. She said she turned to another mother and said, “It's so beautiful. It's perverse.”

But, she added a little later: “I'm very grateful to be here. Because I have access to people I would never have access to. And the goal is to save Hersh's life, and everyone who is there, their lives. I can only do that if we have access to people who have power. And those are the people who are here.”

Reporting was contributed by Jordyn Holman, Michael J. de la Merced, Marc Lacey And Matthew Mpoke Bigg.