Obviously everyone is free to read and interpret something however they wish. But to your point:
> I see someone who was genuinely baffled at the thought that there are good people of a particular ethnicity, when he was brainwashed completely to the opposite.
As I think I said at the top of my comment, if he had stopped there, I don't think there would have been as much hay to make (though that's an unknowable). Personally I found the writing of that first section awkward, and a little uncomfortable (man, he really likes to emphasize just how much he hated jews), but I at least can understand the desire to share a personal transformation.
Site note: Perhaps the jaunty tone of it is part of what I find off-putting? It's got a very "ho ho ho, man, wasn't that a crazy time" kind of tone, when other similar personal transformations that I've read are grounds for regret and reflection. Not that someone has to wear a hairshirt for every past belief they realized was wrong, but this one seemed inappropriately casual.
But the problem that I have with the piece is really the rest of it - I think it's a little patronizing, I think using 23andme data to justify your positions is problematic, and I think paragraph after paragraph you see someone expounding at length on their ideas about very complex subjects, subjects that are near and dear to people's identities and politics. It's not a dialogue, it's not a jumping off point for a discussion, it's just a polemic.
Even that, though ill-advised, probably could be forgiveable (after all, this bubbled up a while ago - the post was published over a month ago), but according to the article instead of taking feedback and starting a discussion, he continued to argue the same points that his team was telling him were offensive. That's not great leadership, that's not listening to the team, that's not navigating a complex situation with grace. He didn't have to just fall on his sword and apoloogize, but as a VP you have to at least be thoughtful about how you handle these situations.
Heck, I'm not even a VP, and I've had to deal with these types of very complex political and personal issues in the workplace, and I handled it better than this guy did. Leadership is listening, understanding, engaging respectfully, and disagreeing where appropriate. It doesn't sound like that's what was happening here.
> As an aside, I think telling someone "nobody asked you for your opinion" is pretty rude.
My point is, it's not like someone asked him to articulate his thoughts on the Israel-Palestine conflict and he just handled it badly. He chose to wade into one of the most polarizing and complicated topics, not just in a casual offhand comment, but in a >10k word essay that ranged from his own personal beliefs, to israeli oppression, to whether israel is a democracy, to his own status as a jew. All of these topics are highly polarizing and people have very strong opinions about them. He's entitled to his opinions, but publishing them to the world and then doubling down on them when confronted with the reaction is an unforced error. He should have known better.
> This cancel culture is getting crazy.
Look, I've only managed teams 1/10th the size of what he was managing, and even I know that posting something like this online is ill-advised and inappropriate, and I would never do it. If someone asks me privately what my beliefs are on a particular topic, I'm happy to have the discussion - but I'm not going to go to my audience of 12k followers on linkedin and proclaim them, as he did. If someone wrote something years ago that pops up, I'm usually onboard with forgiving them, because people say stupid things and people change. But respecting your team and the people you work with means recognizing that there are different beliefs and values and that the words you say matter.