Jews and Arabs around the world come together, 'refuse to be enemies'

By CHELSEA HUANG

As the conflict in Israel and Gaza escalates and negative rhetoric continues to dominate the conversation, two Hunter College students have created a refreshing social media campaign that aims to spread love rather than hate, according to Mashable.

Abraham Gutman, who is Israeli, and Dania Darwish, who is Syrian, posted a photo of themselves with the hashtag #JewsAndArabsRefuseToBeEnemies and launched a Facebook page under the same name.

"With tempers only rising both on the ground and in social media platforms, we thought it would be productive to remind people that they are allowed to refuse to join the hateful discourse," Gutman wrote in an editorial for the Christian Science Monitor.

The campaign has proved successful, spreading like wildfire on the web and inviting Jews and Arabs around the world to share their own stories.

Sulome Anderson, a half-Lebanese journalist, participated in the campaign by posting a photo of herself kissing her Jewish boyfriend. Her photo went viral, garnering thousands of retweets and favorites, and has become the face of the campaign.

In a piece for New York Magazine, Anderson wrote that she and Jeremy would frequently argue over Israeli-Palestinian issues. She had firsthand experience working in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, while her boyfriend once witnessed a bus bombing when he lived in Israel.

"He had seen that violence from the other side. 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," she wrote.