Trouble during the Miss Universe pageant is nothing new, but Miss Lebanon’s attack on Miss Israel, Doron Matalon, might be the first to ever cause controversy over a harmless selfie. The whole thing started when Miss Lebanon, Saly Griege, posed for a selfie with some other contestants, and Miss Israel also happened to be in the picture. I mean, they’re all at the Miss Universe Pageant, and isn’t the whole thing supposed to be about fostering cooperation between people of all nationalities and being accepting of other cultures? That’s supposed to be one of the cornerstones of the Miss Universe pageant, and yet, that’s not what we’re seeing happen here.
The selfie obviously went viral, and it ended up getting Miss Lebanon, Saly Greige a lot of backlash from her home country. Some Lebanese people weren’t thrilled that their representative at the Miss Universe pageant posed with Miss Israel. Due to pressure she received stemming from religious and political differences – which frankly, don’t have any place in a Miss Universe Pageant – Miss Lebanon ended up posting another version of the selfie, this time with Miss Israel cropped out. Not only that, but she claimed that Miss Israel photobombed the selfie (which is probably a lie Greige invented to protect herself from fanatics and her government back home), and that she had no intention of having any interaction with Matalon. She wrote, “I was having a photo with Miss Japan, Miss Slovenia, suddenly Miss Israel jumped in and took a selfie, and uploaded it on her social media.”
Miss Israel Doron Matalon responded to Miss Lebanon’s inappropriate comments, stating, “It doesn’t surprise me, but it still makes me sad. Too bad you can not put the hostility out of the game, only for three weeks of an experience of a lifetime.”
And unfortunately, whether we’re talking about a Miss Universe Pageant or a Paris rally or even an innocent gathering in the Middle East, religious and political differences fueled by anti-Semitism always foster hostility and eventually violence. Will we ever get to a place where this sort of thing doesn’t happen? One can only hope. According to the New York Times, Lebanon’s government has initiated an investigation over the selfie – I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
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