Sarah Idan is a former Miss Iraq who is now an American citizen. More on Sarah Idan can be found here: “‘This was not about freeing Palestine’: Former Miss Iraq tours decimated southern towns,” Times of Israel, December 30, 2023:
The 2017 candidate from Iraq for Miss Universe caused an international uproar after meeting and taking a selfie with Miss Israel Adar Gandelsman in Las Vegas, captioned, “Peace and Love from Miss Iraq and Miss Israel.” The pair remain close friends and met up this week in Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square during Idan’s third trip to Israel.
Within three days of posting that first selfie in 2017, the virulent backlash to the photograph caused her family to again become refugees as they were forced to leave Iraq, emigrating to the US….
Just think: Idan took a single selfie with Miss Israel, and that display of decency was enough to trigger death threats against her whole family, who were then forced to leave Iraq. No doubt, even in the United States, as she runs for office, she will need round-the-clock security.
Idan told Channel 12 that she is surprised by the lack of a popular uprising against Hamas in Gaza.
“What is really sad is that the Gazans have not taken action against Hamas. What are they waiting for? In Iraq, we had Saddam Hussein and he was brutal and Iraqis couldn’t really stand up to him, but the minute the US came in they went and they brought down his statues and they celebrated the victory.”
Saddam Hussein was a dictator, a singular monster whom most Iraqis were glad to see deposed and executed. But Hamas is a mass movement, deeply rooted in Islam, and regarded with favor by the majority of Palestinians. In fact, Hamas is now more popular in Gaza than it was before October 7, when 67% wanted Hamas’ rule in Gaza to end. But since October 7, 52% of Gazans now support Hamas; it’s quite a reversal of sentiment. This is something Sarah Idan can’t quite bring herself to believe. But in time she will.
“What I [Sarah Idan] don’t understand is why, when the IDF went into Gaza to take out Hamas, is why Gazans are not helping the IDF. Why they did not take this opportunity to turn against Hamas because now Hamas is weakened. So do they approve? Do they approve of the killing? I hope not,” she said.
Sarah Idan understands that Hamas is an enemy of the Palestinians in Gaza. It is Hamas that brought poverty and violence to the Strip. It is Hamas — though not only Hamas — that poisoned the minds of the Palestinians in the Strip who are, horribile dictu, enthusiasts for what Hamas did on October 7. They do not deplore, but applaud, the acts of that day: the beheading of babies, the children burned alive, the girls and women gang-raped, tortured, mutilated, and murdered, the women whose breasts were sliced off, the men whose eyes were gouged out and genitalia cut off, the children killed in front of their parents and their parents in front of their children. All this is well known. Yet in a mid-December opinion poll, not only did 52% of Gazans say they approved of what Hamas did on October 7; worse still, 85% of Palestinians in Judea and Samaria (a/k/a the West Bank), approved, for an overall approval rating for Hamas of 72% of Palestinians. And it is not just the Palestinians, but people all over the Arab world who support Hamas despite, or more likely because of, what its operatives did to Israelis on October 7.
Idan still has some learning to do about the full malignancy of Islam. She may be held back from fully comprehending the ideology because of familial piety, her love for her parents and other family members, who, I am assuming, think of themselves as Muslims but are so only in a cultural sense. Eventually, as Idan realizes how many Muslims all over the world are cheering on not just Hamas, but also Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the PFLP, and so many more murderous groups, when she studies the calls for violence in the Qur’an, and the Qur’anic description of non-Muslims as “the most vile of created beings,” Sarah Idan should experience a salutary shock. She is now running for Congress. Whether she wins or losses in the primary or the general election that follows, Idan will be able to express her new, deeper understanding of Islam, to an American public intrigued by her history, her good looks (which will be enrolled in the service of a good cause), and her obvious decency, so different from what the sour-faced and perennially outraged members of the Squad have on offer.