{"id":49120,"date":"2025-11-23T09:06:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T09:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/49120\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T09:06:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T09:06:12","slug":"exclusive-israeli-miss-universe-contestant-fumes-over-miss-palestines-terror-ties-makes-my-skin-crawl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/49120\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive | Israeli Miss Universe contestant fumes over Miss Palestine’s terror ties: ‘Makes my skin crawl’"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the scandal-scarred<\/a> Miss Universe pageant wrapped Friday, a fuming Miss Israel demanded they strip Miss Palestine of her top 30 status<\/a> \u2014 following The Post\u2019s bombshell report<\/a> outing her marriage to a convicted terrorist\u2019s son.<\/p>\n

The false eyelashes hit the fan ever since the news broke that the first-ever \u201cMiss Palestine\u201d contestant in the Miss Universe pageant, Nadeen Ayoub, married the son of jailed notorious Fatah terrorist, Marwan Barghouti, and even named a child after him.<\/p>\n

\u201cMiss Universe should not condone fraud, violations of its code of conduct and especially terror.\u00a0I expect them to take corrective action,\u201d Miss Israel, Melanie Shiraz, 27, told The Post Saturday \u2014 a day after Miss Mexico was crowned the winner of the plagued pageant.<\/p>\n

Shiraz demanded that Miss Universe strip Ayoub\u2019s top 30 status. Courtesy of Melanie Shiraz Asor<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t need to act as the moral CEO of Miss Universe \u2013 they should be able to do that themselves,\u201d added Shiraz, who said she faced death threats<\/a> in the wake of accusations she gave the side-eye to Miss Palestine on stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey turned a blind eye and rewarded her for these serious violations\u201d by placing her in the top 30.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u00a0makes my skin crawl thinking we were in the same room so many times,\u201d said Shiraz, noting photos of Ayoub with her alleged husband and the wife of terror mastermind, Marwan Barghouti, \u201cappears to sympathize with terror.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s shocking\u201d that we all shared a stage with someone with serious terror ties,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

News broke that Ayoub married the son of notorious Fatah terrorist Marwan Barghouti. @misspalestine_org\/Instagram<\/p>\n

Though Ayoub, who was dogged by controversy from the get-go as a Canadian living in Dubai and representing the Palestinian state, made it into the top 30, she was eliminated following the swimsuit round \u2014 the first competition of the night \u2014 in which she wore a white one-piece and sheer, white tights covering her legs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Shiraz, a UC Berkeley-educated former data scientist, Ayoub\u2019s presence felt \u201cvery unsavory \u2013 not aligned with the angelic persona she\u2019s trying to portray of herself, not just to me but to most people who met her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scandal erupted early in the preliminary pageant days when Shiraz accused Ayoub\u2019s social media posts of spreading lies about the Gaza War. <\/p>\n

Shiraz said she received death threats over the alleged side-eye debacle. GrandTV\/YouTube<\/p>\n

She slammed her Arab competitor for posting images that invoked the murdered Bibas children<\/a>, Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 9 months, as Palestinian casualties of the war in Gaza instead of victims of Hamas terrorists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTo take these innocent Israeli children\u2014murdered in their homes or in captivity\u2014and present them as though they were Palestinian casualties is not an act of compassion,\u201d Shiraz said in an October video. <\/p>\n

Marwan Barghouti enters the Tel Aviv courtroom Thursday, Nov. 21, 2002. AP<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with all you need to know\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMorning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Yet, after her dubious crowning as Miss Palestine, Ayoub was quoted as saying<\/a>, \u201cI want to be a voice for the Palestinian people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shiraz, who spent part of her childhood in the US, isn\u2019t buying it.<\/p>\n

Shiraz said that Ayoub \u201cengineered conflict\u201d and laid a trap.<\/p>\n

\u201cI smiled at her the first day at breakfast \u2013 and it was very clear she was not going to engage with me,\u201d said Shiraz, sharing another \u201cawkward\u201d incident.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in an elevator \u2013\u00a0 just us \u2013 and she stood there quietly\u201d until Shiraz tried to make small talk. \u201cIt was very stiff and awkward.\u201d<\/p>\n

An episode earlier this month exploded after Miss Palestine posted doctored footage from a pre-pageant ceremony of Miss Israel purportedly giving her competitor the \u201cside eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arab and Sharaf Barghouti, sons of Marwan Barghouthi, wait with their relative Najah Ashkar to enter an Israeli court on the opening day of their father\u2019s trial September 5, 2002 in Tel Aviv, Israel. Getty Images<\/p>\n

The video was elevated to a near-international incident by celebs such as Israel-hating Bella Hadid, who reposted the doctored footage from Ayoub\u2019s post. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was friends with all the girls that we don\u2019t have diplomatic ties with \u2014 even in the Arab region. I had no issues with anyone in that entire competition,\u201d Shiraz said.<\/p>\n

After the stilettos and backup eyelashes were discarded, Shiraz told The Post creating needless controversy is \u201cthe kind of rhetoric that furthers conflict in this region.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said she\u2019s humanitarian \u2013 she claims she\u2019s a champion of women\u2019s empowerment, but I\u2019d like to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After the scandal-scarred Miss Universe pageant wrapped Friday, a fuming Miss Israel demanded they strip Miss Palestine of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[60,10695,9,11,10,663,3694,1076],"class_list":{"0":"post-49120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-israel","9":"tag-miss-universe","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-news","13":"tag-palestine","14":"tag-terrorism","15":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}