Social Media Campaign Promotes Peace Between Arabs and Jews

A social media campaign – featuring the hashtag "Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies" – is encouraging people to post pictures demonstrating solidarity between Jews and Muslims to protest against the growing religious conflict in Palestine.

As the death toll in the Israeli-Hamas conflict passed 1,000 and the Israeli bombardment of Hamas militant stronghold in the Gaza strip reached its 19th day, the #JewsandArabsrefusetobeenemies campaign went viral on Twitter, Facebook and Vine.

People tweeted and recorded videos to promote coexistence between Jews and Arabs in Palestine and across the world.

The campaign was launched by Abraham Gutman and Dania Darwish, who are both students at Hunter College in New York. Gutman is a 21-year-old Jewish Israeli, while Darwish is a 23-year-old Muslim. They started a Facebook page which has since gained more than 30,000 fans.

"For me, it is hard to watch the current escalation between Israel and Gaza from afar. I wanted to find a way to be more than a passenger, to do something about it rather than just watch the news and hope for the best," Gutman told Christian Science Monitor.

Gutman has been encouraging Arab-Jewish couples and friends to post pictures on Twitter using the hashtag.

Sulome Anderson, a half-Lebanese journalist, whose father Terry Anderson was kidnapped by Hezbollah during the Lebanese civil war, was one of those who took part.

"He calls me neshama, I call him habibi. Love doesn't speak the language of occupation," wrote Sulome in her Twitter account.

The journalist also told NYmag that the selfie became a "viral symbol of peace".

"This isn't just about politics. This is about people. No one knows better than I the toll Middle East violence takes on ordinary people just trying to live.

"My boyfriend is Jewish, raised in an orthodox family, and I'm half Lebanese. As the region exploded into war, we started to come closer together in our opinions given the fact that we both share critical values: respect and concern for human life."

Although her tweeted photo of a kiss with her boyfriend was met with disapproval by some, many others have followed her example, posting pictures of their mixed Jewish and Arab relationships.