Lebanese scold ‘Tel Aviv Loves Beirut’ hashtag

BY

Fatima Al-Wahaidy

-

Mon, 30 Oct 2017 - 11:51 GMT

BY

Fatima Al-Wahaidy

Mon, 30 Oct 2017 - 11:51 GMT

Photo posted by Lebanese Twitter users responding to Hashtag Tel Aviv Loves Beirut showing Israeli children ‎signing missiles before firing them on Lebanon in 2014 - Twitter October 29‎

Photo posted by Lebanese Twitter users responding to Hashtag Tel Aviv Loves Beirut showing Israeli children ‎signing missiles before firing them on Lebanon in 2014 - Twitter October 29‎

CAIRO – 30 October 2017: The “Tel Aviv Loves Beirut” hashtag topped the trending list over the weekend, enraging many Lebanese. The hashtag included several posts by Israelis and Lebanese, including posts by the official account of the Tel Aviv Municipality.

The hashtag was launched following an announcement by Forbes magazine featuring both Beirut and Tel Aviv among the “trending international destinations” for this season.

The Twitter battle between the Lebanese and Israeli Twitter users started when Israeli investment manager, Marc Leibowitz, tweeted the Forbes article and tagged two accounts in his tweet, the “Beirut city guide” and Tel Aviv’s official tourism account. The official Twitter account for “Beirut city guide” replied back to the Forbes announcement and requested to be “excluded from the narrative.” Israeli Twitter users accused the Lebanese company of being “childish.”




Missing the point, Israelis explained the “Beirut city guide” tweet to mean that the Lebanese capital wanted to be removed from the Forbes’ selection of hot tourist sites, simply because Tel Aviv was included. They responded by launching the hashtag #TelAvivLovesBeirut and said that it is “an outpouring of unrequited love,” as described by Israeli news outlet Haaretz. Moreover, Israeli Twitter users started accusing the Lebanese of failing to prioritize the “narrative of love.”
















The Mosad Twitter account requested “all agents to post in the hashtag.”




The Lebanese company replied back by explaining that they want their company’s name to be excluded and that they do not represent the city of Beirut.




To bring more tension and anger among Lebanese and Arab Twitter users, some Israeli tweets requested to include “Jerusalem loves Beirut” as a reference that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.







The Lebanese were quick to respond back, stating that the “loving” hashtag ignored decades of Israeli abuse and was a “trite erasure of politics and history.” A Lebanese replied back to the Tel Aviv municipality’s tweet by saying “such love is deadly.”







In response to the Israelis' requests to the Lebanese to "move on," the Lebanese explained that they will never forget the level of violence Israel committed in Lebanon.

Moreover, they highlighted that Israel’s tourist industry benefits from its illegal occupation of Palestinian land and that tourism, like everyday life, in Palestine is being suffocated under Israeli military control. Lebanese Twitter users also posted that Israel is constantly trying to frame itself internationally as innocent, welcoming, tolerant and unjustly hated by its hostile neighbors.

Lebanon-based writer, Alexandra Talty, pointed out the flaws in the hashtag. She said “to frame the Lebanese as “childish” for not wanting their capital to be included alongside Tel Aviv, and to claim the moral high ground for “showing love” through a hashtag, is an erasure of politics and history.”








The hashtag is part of a wider issue as Lebanon and Israel remain formally in a state of war. In 2006, an Israeli aggression on Lebanon killed around 1,200 Lebanese.

Moreover, the Israeli illegal ground invasions of southern Lebanon since 1978 devastated the Lebanese infrastructure and displaced more than a million citizens.

Earlier this year, Lebanon banned the screening of the movie “Wonder Woman” for starring an Israeli actress, Gal Gadot, who served in the Israeli army during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war and expressed support for the Israeli forces during the war on the Gaza Strip in summer 2014.


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