BEIRUT: "What picture will anger the Middle East this week? ISIS beheading? ... What?" American political satirist Jon Stewart pondered on the Daily Show Monday night.
“No, it's a selfie that caused an international incident,” Stewart, who is also a renowned media critic, answered, referring to the picture showing Miss Lebanon smiling widely next to Miss Israel and two other beauty pageant contestants which caused a firestorm in Lebanon.
The segment played clips from U.S. television news programs reporting on the controversy, including one that quoted a Lebanese TV station as saying that “Miss Lebanon should have known better because Lebanon and Israel are enemies.”
The animated Stewart responded: “It’s a beauty pageant, they’re all enemies!”
“Good for both Miss Lebanon and Miss Israel rising above your countries’ political squabbles to say to the world, on the inside we’re the same! ... and on the outside apparently,” Stewart added.
Miss Lebanon Saly Greige defended herself on social media after the controversy erupted by claiming that Miss Israel photobombed a picture she was taking with Miss Slovenia and Miss Japan.
Miss Israel later posted the photo to Instagram.
Stewart wondered whether “anything that happens between Middle East countries has to be a bombing.”
“What’s the problem with Miss Israel taking only a very narrow strip at the edge? What are you going to do? Push her back to pre-1967 borders?” he joked.
“I get that Israel and Lebanon share an intractable enmity but come on! The miss universe pageant? It’s the one chance in the whole year, when all nations can put aside their differences, come together in Miami, and as one, treat women like expensive food instead of human beings.”
Greige, a brunette with green eyes, was crowned Miss Lebanon during a ceremony in October.
After the selfie with Miss Israel was circulated some Lebanese asked that Greige be stripped from her title for mingling with the citizen of an enemy state.
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