Israeli, Palestinian teens open back channel via Facebook
What started as verbal hostilities between Israeli and Gazan teenagers turned into meaningful online dialogue when mutual accusations gave way to curiosity about each other's lives.
For the past several months, a few dozen young Israelis and Palestinians from the Gaza Strip have been communicating with each other directly, in English. They tell each other about their lives, exchange experiences and, of course, they argue about their situation.
As far as the young people from Gaza are concerned, they are taking no small risk. Hamas not only opposes any manifestations of normalization with Israelis, it could well decide that this kind of forbidden communication is a form of collaboration with the enemy.
The first contacts were initiated by the young people from Gaza, using Facebook as their intermediary. Some of them posted statements denigrating their Israeli peers and protesting their silence over the blockade that the government has imposed on Gaza. According to the young Gazans, the siege prevents them from leading a normal life and pursuing their studies outside Gaza. The Israelis responded with claims of their own, but in a short time, their mutual recriminations became fascinating conversations about life in Gaza, life in Israel, dreams, aspirations and ideas to resolve the conflict. It took very little time for young people on both sides of the border to discover that they have quite a few common interests, including music, sports and even fashion.
"I have friends who started to communicate with young people from Gaza out of curiosity and a desire to chastise them and argue with them about how they attack Israel with missiles, encourage and engage in terrorist attacks and support Hamas," Noam Bluming, 17, told Al-Monitor. "Over time, we came to learn that these young people are just like us. They are the same age as us. They are just imprisoned by the siege and have been for many years now, so they are desperate."
