An Israeli Facebook campaign [1] to say to Iranians “We will never bomb your country. We love you” has received an answer from Iranians in the form a corresponding Facebook campaign that says to Israelis, “We are your friends.”
Israeli Ronny Edry and his wife Michal Tamir started the initiative on the Facebook profile for Pushpin Mehina, a small school for graphic design students in Tel Aviv.
The campaign has captured a lot of attention on the internet and even Haaretz, a leading Israeli newspaper in English, wrote [2] that the “online call for peace initiated by an Israeli couple has managed to achieve the support of 1,000 Israelis and Iranians. And it all began with two posters.”
Now Iranians are going an extra mile by pouring their photos and messages onto Facebook on a page called, ‘From Iran for Peace and Democracy [3]‘.
Each photo begins with a first name, followed by: “Israelis, We do not want a nuclear Bomb, We want democracy and peace, we are your Friends.”
Here is Nima's message:
Happy Nowrooz! let it be the beginning of a new era!
We, Iranians, do not want a nuclear bomb!
We, Iranians, do not want a war!
We, Iranians, do not want an Islamic regime!
We, Iranians, do not want to support terrorist groups!
We want democracy!
We want peace!
We want respect!
We want freedom
A toast for peace
Here is Amir's photo:
… and a human rights activist
Ahmad Batebi [4] is a former prisoner of conscience from Iran. During his studies at the University of Tehran he gained international fame for his appearance on the July 17, 1999, cover of The Economist magazine, holding up a shirt splattered with the blood of a fellow protester. Here is his photo.
Perhaps one day Iranains and Israelis can reap, in the real world, what they sowed in the virtual one.