A romantic marriage proposal against the dramatic backdrop of Italy's Dolomites took an unexpected turn after Maor Tzabari and her partner asked a content creator they encountered at the site to take their picture. A necklace he was wearing sparked a conversation about Israel and Palestine, the atmosphere shifted — and Tzabari later discovered that the encounter had been turned into a video posted online that portrayed the couple in a negative light. She posted a response video of her own, and the story went viral.
In an interview with ynet, Tzabari, who runs a social media business for brides, said it all began during what was supposed to be one of the happiest moments of her life.
Maor Tzabari and her partner, Tal, after the marriage proposal
(Photo: Courtesy of Maor Tzabari)
"It was the most moving, beautiful and intimate marriage proposal in the world," she said. According to Tzabari, she and her partner, Tal, were almost alone at the scenic spot, with only a handful of other people nearby.
Shortly after the proposal, the couple noticed a content creator filming himself at the site. Wanting a few photos together that they could not take themselves, they approached him and asked for his help.
That was when Tzabari noticed the necklace he was wearing.
"I'm very Israeli — you could call it chutzpah — so I excitedly grabbed his necklace and said to him, 'See, you're in Israel,'" she recalled. According to Tzabari, his expression immediately changed. "We realized right away that we'd touched on something sensitive."
Tzabari said she initially assumed he was Israeli. "I really thought some Matan from Tel Aviv was taking my picture," she said. But the man introduced himself as Ahmad and said he lived in Palestine.
She said she and her partner tried not to escalate the situation but realized the atmosphere had changed.
"I even told Tal, my partner, 'Listen, he can't stand us. Let's just forget it,'" she said. According to Tzabari, Ahmad took only a few photos of them before the couple went on their way. She added that she ultimately did not use the pictures and did not attach any particular importance to the encounter.
Maor's response video:
The story took another turn later, when Tzabari was sent a link to a video the man had posted online.
"Hey, isn't that the guy who took your picture?" people wrote to her after she had already told her followers about the encounter.
When she watched the video, Tzabari said she discovered that the incident was being presented from a very different perspective than the one she remembered. According to her, Ahmad portrayed the couple as Israelis who had mistreated him and said he needed to apologize to Allah for taking their picture.
"We really did approach him and I did grab his necklace," Tzabari said, but stressed that from her perspective there had been nothing hostile about the encounter. "We were so nice. There really wasn't anything there that could be seen as hatred or incitement."
After watching the video, Tzabari decided to post her own version.
"He picked the wrong person to mess with — someone who knows how to edit and create a little buzz," she said. According to Tzabari, she wanted to respond with humor while also conveying a broader message against hostility toward Israelis online.
She posted response videos in both Hebrew and English.
"I wanted to present it in a somewhat lighter way," she said. "I think it came out both funny and effective in getting the message across."
But the reactions to the two versions were markedly different.
"The English video is getting a lot of hate, and there are a lot of antisemitic comments there," she said. By contrast, she said, the Hebrew-language video received "a lot of love, a lot of support."
Tzabari also commented on the original video, but said her comment was deleted. She does not know whether Ahmad saw her response video, and he has not contacted her.
For Tzabari, however, the story has come to represent something larger than that one encounter in the Dolomites.
"Ahmad isn't the point," she said. "This is something that has happened to a lot of people. So many people are commenting to me, 'It happened to me too.' In the end, he's just the fool of the moment. He doesn't matter."