President Shimon Peres and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni on Wednesday initiated a digital campaign against racism, posting pictures of their eyes on their Facebook pages and on a central eye-collage page to create a giant work of unity against racism.The campaign, dubbed “Look in my eyes,” is one piece of the Justice Ministry’s new campaign against racism, in coordination with the Government Press Office.The ministry said that the hope was for the campaign to be widespread nationally and eventually to make the largest collage of eyes ever displayed in Israel.
The Association of Students is co-sponsoring the campaign and is working to spread word of the campaign through the ranks of university students.Peres said, “Israel fundamentally rejects racism on the basis of religion, nationality, ethnicity and gender. We are all born in the image of God. Every person has the right to equality and an equal right to be different.”Livni said that “in a democratic country, there is no place for racism and discrimination, which is a violation of the law.”She added that the ministry would continue to have “zero tolerance for this phenomenon.”“It is time that we look into each other’s eyes and understand that we are all equal before the law and before God,” Livni said.The ministry said that the campaign’s goal was to show that racism can only be defeated through unity and that it is illegal and a social injustice.The eye-collage page is www.eyesign.org.il and people can upload a picture of their eyes into the collage either via the website or by using the Instagram photo-sharing application.Some persons who had uploaded pictures of their eyes listed their names, including head Justice Ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen, while others were uploaded anonymously.The collage is mostly pictures of human eyes, but includes several pictures of dogs’ and cats’ eyes, and even one horse.At press time, 320 pictures of eyes were already uploaded on the campaign’s first day.The ministry has a hotline, 1-700-70-60- 44, for reporting racism.Peres, Livni post their eyes online to launch digital campaign against racism
“Look in my eyes,” is one piece of the Justice Ministry’s new campaign against racism.
