Israelis Protest Against War on Iran

Hundreds of Israelis marched in Tel Aviv on Saturday to protest against a possible unilateral Israeli military strike on Iran, as more Israeli citizens begin to reach out to Iranians.

The protest sprung up independently after a Facebook campaign by Israelis aimed at peacefully engaging Iranians went viral. A doctoral student from Tel Aviv posted a photo of herself and her cat on Facebook, with a sign in Farsi reading: “We love you, people of Iran.” Another Israeli posted a photo of himself and his daughter with a poster reading, “Iranians, we will never bomb your country, we [heart] you.”

It wasn’t long before the movement caught on and Iranians on Facebook began to respond in kind.

Apart from the Facebook activism that seems to have started this campaign, “Israelis mounted an art exhibit in Tel Aviv centered on Iran, built a website in Farsi with news of Israeli daily life, and protested Saturday against a potential strike on Iranian nuclear installations,” the Associated Press reports.

The U.S. has become increasingly bellicose towards Iran, heaping crippling economic sanctions and hurling rhetoric at Tehran. U.S. and Israeli intelligence agree that Iran is far off from having nuclear weapons, but while the Obama administration is decidedly against an attack now, Israel has warned that a unilateral strike may be imminent, despite the intelligence consensus.

Author: John Glaser

John Glaser writes for Antiwar.com.