This is a very touchy subject that I need help with. This is your fair warning.
The other day a former co-worker and classmate invited me out to coffee in an attempt to gather referrals of people to sell financial services too. While I tend to find these types of meetings distasteful, I do like the person in question and wanted to help out a friend.
After I ran through a list of people who might be interested, and we finished our coffee chatting about politics (we originally met in class because we're both PoliSci majors). For the most part, this person and I see eye to eye, and we've had several good philosophy debates in the past. At the time, I certainly did not feel like I was treading into dangerous waters. The conversation drifted naturally to the war in Syria, then to Israel. That's when we hit trouble (of course).
This person adheres to Islam and is an immigrant from a large Muslim (non-Arab) power. Without trying to start a flamewar, this person does not recognize Israel's right to exist, and said this to my face. I must have been visually taken aback (especially because this came from someone I thought was very open-minded and fair) because the next sentence out of this person's mouth was "Oh, you're not Jewish are you?". My father is Jewish and I told this person as much. I expected a polite apology and a change of subject. What I got was an unapologetic, borderline racist, lecture.
Being in a public place, I kept my mouth shut to avoid making a scene. I finally managed to pull the subject back to safe ground, and we spent another 5 minutes or so chatting before heading our separate ways. Now that I've had some time to digest what happened and to calm down, I have decided I don't wish to have much further contact with this person beyond polite professionalism. However, this person still has the list of sales contacts.
It's not like this person is bombing synagogues; and voicing a different, if not radical, opinion is the right of every American. I suppose my question is: which is the more "manly" thing to do? Stand up for myself and my beliefs and the risk of permanently souring a useful business contact with whom I share MANY mutual contacts? Or take my lumps on this one, let the person use my list of contacts, wish them the best, then make myself unavailable for further "favors"?
Thanks in advance. And yes, lesson learned about mixing business and politics.
