After the scandal-scarred Miss Universe pageant wrapped Friday, a fuming Miss Israel demanded they strip Miss Palestine of her top 30 status — following The Post’s bombshell report outing her marriage to a convicted terrorist’s son.
The false eyelashes hit the fan ever since the news broke that the first-ever “Miss Palestine” 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.
“Miss Universe should not condone fraud, violations of its code of conduct and especially terror. I expect them to take corrective action,” Miss Israel, Melanie Shiraz, 27, told The Post Saturday — a day after Miss Mexico was crowned the winner of the plagued pageant.
Courtesy of Melanie Shiraz Asor
“I don’t need to act as the moral CEO of Miss Universe – they should be able to do that themselves,” added Shiraz, who said she faced death threats in the wake of accusations she gave the side-eye to Miss Palestine on stage.
“They turned a blind eye and rewarded her for these serious violations” by placing her in the top 30.
“It makes my skin crawl thinking we were in the same room so many times,” said Shiraz, noting photos of Ayoub with her alleged husband and the wife of terror mastermind, Marwan Barghouti, “appears to sympathize with terror.”
“It’s shocking” that we all shared a stage with someone with serious terror ties,” she said.
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 — the first competition of the night — in which she wore a white one-piece and sheer, white tights covering her legs.
For Shiraz, a UC Berkeley-educated former data scientist, Ayoub’s presence felt “very unsavory – not aligned with the angelic persona she’s trying to portray of herself, not just to me but to most people who met her.”
Scandal erupted early in the preliminary pageant days when Shiraz accused Ayoub’s social media posts of spreading lies about the Gaza War.
She slammed her Arab competitor for posting images that invoked the murdered Bibas children, Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 9 months, as Palestinian casualties of the war in Gaza instead of victims of Hamas terrorists.
“To take these innocent Israeli children—murdered in their homes or in captivity—and present them as though they were Palestinian casualties is not an act of compassion,” Shiraz said in an October video.
Yet, after her dubious crowning as Miss Palestine, Ayoub was quoted as saying, “I want to be a voice for the Palestinian people.”
Shiraz, who spent part of her childhood in the US, isn’t buying it.
“I smiled at her the first day at breakfast – and it was very clear she was not going to engage with me,” said Shiraz, sharing another “awkward” incident.
“We were in an elevator – just us – and she stood there quietly” until Shiraz tried to make small talk. “It was very stiff and awkward.”
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 “side eye.”
