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Former Miss Iraq: ‘October 7th wasn’t about freeing Palestine’

Idan had her Iraqi citizenship revoked in 2019 when she expressed solidarity with Israel at the UN.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Former Miss Iraq and 2024 US congressional candidate Sarah Idan told Channel 12 following her visit to the devastated remains of Kfar Aza that the war between Israel and Hamas “isn’t about freeing Palestine.”

She explained, “I want them (the anti-Israel protestors) to see the horror that caused the war on Gaza. The world is shouting ‘Free Palestine’ and it was never about freeing Palestine.”

Idan added, “(October 7th was about) killing innocent families and burning them alive. This is not freeing Palestine, this is terrorism.”

Sarah Idan who represented Iraq in the Miss Universe pageant in 2017, stirred controversy when she took a selfie with Miss Israel Adar Gandelsman in Las Vegas, captioned, “Peace and Love from Miss Iraq and Miss Israel.”

Idan had her Iraqi citizenship revoked in 2019 when she expressed solidarity with Israel.

At the UN Human Rights Council she declared that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians wasn’t based on good-faith disagreement, but on a “deeply rooted in the belief systems taught in Muslim countries, which are antisemitic.”

The former beauty queen now lives in the United States and is running for Democrat Adam Schiff’s seat as the California congressman prepares for a 2024 Senate run.

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Sarah Idan pointed out parallels between the fight against terrorism in her native Iraq and the struggle against Hamas in Israel.

At the age of 18 in 2008, she taught herself English as a refugee in Syria and worked as a translator for US forces operating in Iraq.

There, she saw firsthand the war against terror as US forces fought the Iraqi version of Hamas.

In an X post, Sarah Idan described her experiences, “So us, the US military, and the Iraqi military were fighting [Iraqi] Hamas together. Tell me, if Hamas were trying to free Iraq, why were they trying to hinder the process of Iraqis establishing their own government and becoming independent?”

She concluded, “Here it’s exactly the same war, the same enemies.”

Sarah Idan is running for Congress in California’s 30th district which includes Burbank, West Hollywood, and parts of Glendale and Pasadena.

She decried the progressive anti-Israel wing of the Democratic party and she said, “The Squad, when it comes to the Middle East, I feel like they have no experience, they’re being told what to say.”

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Idan drew an analogy between the dynamic in Iraq and what’s happening with Hamas in Gaza.

“No one has killed the Iraqi people as much as Iraqi people have killed Iraqi people.”

She described how Saddam Hussein, like Hamas terrorists, hid weapons beneath her school.

“The civil war killed us, the radical Islam killed us and that’s literally what I see is happening with Palestinians.”