Siegel, R. (2012 March 29). We Love You Iran Becomes Anti-War Campaign. NPR. http://www.npr.

org/2012/03/29/149635825/we-love-you-iran-becomes-unlikely-anti-warcampaign Sarah Colegrove We Love You Iran Becomes Anti-War Campaign While tensions between Israel and Iran have been present for many years, lately tensions have been rising as a result of the recent troubles with Iran possibly having nuclear weapons. The Prime Minister of Israel and the President of Iran recently exchanged insults with each about how the other is their enemy. Ronny Edry and Michal Tamir, both of Israeli descent, posted the message Iranians, we will never bomb your country. We heart you. on Facebook. Since then both Israelis and Iranians have contributed to an online anti-war campaign. Ronny Edry and Michal Tamir hope that this movement will continue to grow beyond the fifty thousand plus that they already have involved with this movement. They want this to bring peace between the two countries (Siegel 2012). While there have been gains in this unexpected movement, the initiators of the movement admit that there is a lot of progress that needs to be made and that it will be a difficult road to peace. Ronny Edry said about the campaign, You know, I'm not that naive. I sound naive and the posters are really, you know, with the heart and everything and it sound really childish I am not stupid, but maybe there is another way of dealing with this threat. (Siegel 2012) The idea of peace is something that has been sought for centuries and peace through force or the threat of force is just one of the ways that peace is sought. There are many strategies available for countries (and individuals) to prevent war MAD, STAR WARS, preventative war, and the list goes on. Loving your neighbor is not among them. What Ronny Edry and Michal Tamir have started is a call for peace through loving their neighbor. They are not trying to

promote peace through strength, war, or destruction. Rather they seem to be promoting peace through love and by putting faces to the description of Israeli and Iranian. Peace through loving your neighbor is a way to prevent war that does not involve the harming of anyone, military or civilian. Instead it works through recognizing and respecting the human dignity and rights that those around you have. This process is difficult and long but I find it to be much more beneficial once it is in place than peace through force. Once it is achieved, there will not be a need to worry about weapons that those around you might be occurring and the international arena will be much more stabilized. There would not be a need to worry about which countries have nuclear weapons and which do not. This unusual anti-war campaign has started to make waves in the relations between the Israelis and Iranians; though it is through the everyday citizen rather than through the leaders of the respective countries. If this movement continues, it can help to mend the relationship between the citizens of the respective countries which in turn can hopefully help the leaders of the countries to reconsider the hostilities. Hopefully this online campaign of positive recognition of each other will have an effect on the policy makers of each country before violence erupts.