The picture of a Lebanese journalist kissing her Jewish boyfriend has gone viral on the Internet.

The controversial image shows Sulome Anderson, the daughter of Terry Anderson, the former Middle East bureau chief for the Associated Press and her American-Israeli boyfriend kissing.

The picture was posted in reponse to a social media campaign called: “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies.”

The campaign #JewsandArabsRefuseToBeEnemies was launched by Abraham Gutman and Dania Darwish, both students at Hunter College in New York, shortly after the Israeli military launched Operation Protective Edge on July 8 in a bid to stamp out rocket fire from Gaza killing at least 583 people.

The campaign has prompted many similar images to be posted to social networking sites.

“When we started dating we would argue a lot about politics and slowly but surely, we started coming to some consensus,” Anderson told the American daily news website ABC News.

“We still argue sometimes, but we're coming closer to understanding each other's perspectives,” she added.

“When it comes down to it, we're people and we love each other and that's what matters most," Anderson said.

Al Arabiya