Love in a time of war: Can Tinder, Grindr and kissing selfies ease tensions?
You鈥檝e probably been told to avoid politics on the first date. Yet singles and couples in the Middle East often can鈥檛 steer clear of arguing.
Amidst a renewed bout of violence, some Holy Land bachelors and bachelorettes persist in chatting on dating websites and smartphone apps while others flirt with disaster.
After an Arab-American freelancer uploaded a picture of herself locked in an embrace with her Jewish boyfriend, other interfaith couples followed her lead. 鈥淗e calls me neshama, I call him habibi,鈥� 鈥� using the Hebrew word for soul or darling, and the Arabic word for beloved 鈥� with their kiss retweeted thousands of times.
鈥淲hen we started dating we would argue a lot about politics and slowly but surely, we started coming to some consensus,鈥� about her relationship. 鈥淲e still argue sometimes, but we're coming closer to understanding each other's perspectives.鈥�
Their Twitter campaign depicting photos of Israeli-Palestinian couples kissing went viral. Entitled #JewsAndArabsRefuseToBeEnemies, the hashtag unites Arabs and Jews who are weighing on the side of friendship, peace, and even love.
(The hashtag was initially started by an Israeli residing in the U.S, Abraham Gutman, who wrote an op-ed in The Monitor last week and has appeared on networks such as Al Jazeera America).
鈥淚 would expect that more people would be reluctant to tweet 鈥淒eath to Arabs鈥� or to use the hashtag 鈥楬itlerWasRight鈥� (which was trending on Twitter during the past week) than to label their accounts with a peaceful message,鈥� Gutman wrote.
Some couples tweet to promote interfaith romance - or at least dialogue - during a time of bloodshed in the Gaza Strip and Israel. It鈥檚 part of a social media campaign to overcome political and ethnic divisions in the midst of war, sprinkled with a bit of irony.聽
But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict never lies far below the surface of these often anonymous conversations.聽 On two online matchmaking and casual sex apps 鈥� Tinder and Grindr 鈥� tempers often flare when users casually flirt with one another.
One new site, , showcases some of the testy dialogue generated on the hook-up sites. Even when users message a short greeting, the response can be unexpected.
鈥淐ome to Ramallah,鈥� texts one resident. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to get kill (sic) today,鈥� responds an Israeli, as Israeli citizens are prohibited from visiting Palestinian Authority-governed cities in the West Bank.
鈥淲hat you doing in Ramallah? You don鈥檛 seems (sic) Arabian,鈥� asks another Israeli. 鈥淥pen sesame,鈥� replies the international.
An American living in the West Bank created the Tumblr blog in order to see how the current hostilities between the two sides affected online hook-up culture.
"It started as my roommate and I were sitting on the couch like, 'Let's see what's happening on Tinder,'" Caitlin Kent, 26, , where she works at a summer camp.
She describes some of the conversations as "racist," and she decided to post some of her own and her friends interactions so the world can see both the positive and negative. In this case, love (or the prospect of it) isn't conquering all. But it is at least sparking some engagement with words instead of weapons.
