During the Miss International Beauty Pageant last month in Japan, Miss Israel, Adar Gandelsman, and Miss Iraq, Sarah Idan, briefly posed for photos that they then shared on their Instagram accounts.
While most rational humans viewed these posts with admiration and respect, the Middle East’s legions of radical Islamists felt quite differently.
“Peace and Love from Miss Iraq and Miss Israel,” Idan wrote on her page at the time:
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According to Gandelsman, who has reportedly kept in touch with Idan since they met last month, the Iraqi woman’s decision to both post the selfie to Instagram and reportedly wear a bikini during one of the pageant’s preliminary competitions has “caused a mess for her back home.”
“(P)eople made threats against her and her family that if she didn’t return home and take down the photos — they would remove her (Miss Iraq) title, that they would kill her,” she said recently during an interview with Israel’s Hadashot News, according to The U.K. Daily Telegraph.
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“Out of fear, they left Iraq at least until the situation calms down,” she added.
Speaking this weekend with CNN, Idan herself confirmed this account, though she claimed most of the anger stemmed from her selfie with Gandelsman. She said that after she posted it to Instagram, all hell broke loose.
“When I posted the picture I didn’t think for a second there would be blowback,” she said. “I woke up to calls from my family and the Miss Iraq Organization going insane. The death threats I got online were so scary.”
Concerned about the welfare of her family, she then urged all her relatives to leave Iraq immediately for their own safety.
“My mom was freaking out,” she said. “I told her, ‘Mom, just get out. Get out.’ I told her I’m sorry and asked if she wants me to leave the competition. I was ready to drop out right then.”
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Idan now reportedly resides in the United States, where she possesses dual citizenship.
What remains unclear is whether Idan will ever even be able to return home. She explained to CNN that during the pageant, she had been trying to renew her national ID so she could likewise renew her passport.
“Before her family fled the country, she said her mother was told at the passport office in Baghdad that Idan would have to reapply for the national ID,” CNN report. “That would require Idan to travel back to Iraq, which she says she’s afraid to do.”
She likewise feels horrible over essentially forcing her family to leave their home country.
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“I was crying to my mom and felt like it’s my fault they left, and she said, ‘No, it’s not your fault — we live in a f—ed up society.'”
That’s right. But for someone who grew up in such a “a f—ed up society,” Idan has blossomed into a courageous butterfly — one who to this day refuses to remove her selfie with Gandelsman from Instagram.
The radical Islamists in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East may hate Israel, but she’s not letting that change her mind.
H/T PJ Media
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