Visiting Jerusalem, Miss Iraq is embraced by Israelis

After posting Instagram photos together with the Israeli contestant during the Miss Universe competition, Sarah Idan visited the Jewish state. 

By: World Israel News Staff

Miss Iraq 2017 Sarah Idan is visiting Israel, where she has been warmly received as a cultural hero.

She shared her experience with tens of thousands of followers on social media.

“Friendly relations between Israelis & Arabs will definitely help in ushering in a better tomorrow for all of us in the Middle East,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Arabic-language spokesman Ofir Gendelman wrote on Twitter regarding Idan’s visit.

In Israel, Idan met again with Miss Israel, Adar Gandelsman, with whom she had shared a selfie that generated controversy in her country and subsequently forced her family to flee from Iraq to the US.

After posting the selfie, along with the caption “peace and love from Miss Iraq and Miss Israel,” she received many threats but refused to remove the image.

Idan visited Jerusalem and its famous Mahane Yehuda market, where she was warmly embraced by the locals.

“It actually felt weird, the people look like my people. And the city looks like Damascus, like Syria, and I’ve been there, so everything seems familiar to me,” she told Israel TV on Tuesday.

“Thank you for being so brave, you are an inspiration to all the women in the world,” one Israeli woman told her.

“I don’t think Iraq and Israel are enemies. I think maybe the governments are enemies with each other,” she opined in the report. “But there are a lot of Iraqi people who don’t have a problem with Israel or with the Jewish people. There are a lot of Iraqi people on my side, and I believe they are happy I am here.”

As reports of Idan’s visit to Israel surfaced, Gandelsman’s and Idan’s Instagram pages were hacked, Israeli TV reported.