A former Miss Iraq whose selfie with her Israeli counterpart triggered criticism called Wednesday for coexistence and regional peace in a speech during her first visit to the Jewish state.
This story from the Daily Mail UK
Baghdad-born Sarah Idan, 28, had posted the picture on her Instagram account with her newly made friend, Israel’s Adar Gandelsman, during the 2017 Miss Universe pageant in Las Vegas.
The outcry in her native Iraq, which does not recognise Israel and is formally at war with it, compelled Idan’s family to relocate to the United States, where Sarah had been living.
Speaking at a conference in Jerusalem led by a global Jewish advocacy organisation, Idan called for peace between Iraq and Israel.
“I travelled thousands of miles and put my life in a risk not just to express how so many of us are tired of this endless war between our countries,” she said in English, quoted by the American Jewish Committee Global Forum, where she spoke.
Her visit to Israel was aimed at calling for a “new method” to achieve peace, which seeks “reasoning, mutual compromise and… unity”, she said, rather than “emphasising our disagreements and implanting hatred”.
Read the article on Women for Change.