Sarah Idan, the former Miss Universe Iraq contestant who snapped a selfie with Miss Israel during a competition in 2017, has announced that she is running for Congress in 2024, the Algemeiner reported on Wednesday night.
Idan, who was born in Iraq in 1990 but now lives in Los Angeles, will be running to represent California’s 30th District in the US House of Representatives in November 2024.
On her campaign website, Idan writes about her childhood as a refugee amid the conflicts in Iraq and her work as a translator for the US forces operating in the region. Idan additionally mentions the story of how she took a selfie with then-Miss Israel Adar Gandelsman in 2017 and how she and her family received death threats afterward. Idan’s family fled Iraq in light of the threats.
In 2018, Idan visited Israel, meeting up again with Gandelsman and touring the country. “I don’t think Iraq and Israel are enemies, I think maybe the governments are enemies with each other,” Idan said in an interview with Channel 2 News at the time. “With the people – there’s a lot of Iraqi people that don’t have a problem with Israelis, with the Jewish people.”
Sarai Sarah Idan former Miss Iraq participates in Mean Tweets Israel Edition (credit: HALLEL SILVERMAN)Idan lost her Iraqi citizenship after delivering a speech at a United Nations event in 2019 marking the expulsion of Jews from North Africa and the Middle East following the establishment of the State of Israel.
“I don’t think there’s a better candidate to represent minority groups than me being an immigrant, Muslim woman and coming from Iraq, a country directly affected by US [foreign] policies,” Idan told the Algemeiner. “My voice is definitely the voice of the minority and in Congress, I feel like we need an Iraqi voice.”
Idan wrote on her campaign page that she hopes to “raise awareness about issues such as gender equality, refugee rights, religious tolerance and the plight of persecuted minorities in the Middle East.”
The former Miss Universe contestant is also the founder and CEO of Humanity Forward, an organization aimed at “building bridges among Muslims and Jews in order to surpass borders and promote reconciliation, tolerance, mutual understanding, and peace,” according to the organization’s website.
Idan hopes to counter anti-Israel ‘Squad’ in Democratic Party
Idan added that she is partially running for the Congressional seat in order to counter anti-Israel voices like Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar and Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib.
“I just feel like sadly the Democratic party has been hijacked by loud voices of far-left socialists and I don’t think they represent many of the people with liberal views,” said Idan to the Algemeiner. “They have taken it to an extreme. It’s not only about social issues. Even when it comes to foreign policy and their involvement with basically enemies of the US and trying to always attack our allies in the Middle East [like Israel].”
“This is why I feel like we need a voice like mine because we need a secular Muslim. I want to be the voice of reason and I hate how ‘The Squad,’ whenever anyone questions them, [like] when they attack Israel, they always [claim] ‘I’m being targeted because I’m a Muslim, a woman of color.’ I just feel like we need someone like me who can literally say, ‘No, this is not why. I’m an Arab, Muslim, immigrant woman of color and I do not share your ideology or agenda.’”
“As an activist who is involved and comes from the Middle East, I would represent a more realistic picture of what’s going on rather than people who came here when they were refugees at a very young age and never dealt with what I went through and am still going through until today, me and my family,” Idan added. “I have all this passion and I really want to be involved because I am directly affected by all these decisions, by what Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and AOC [New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] are pushing. My family is in danger. I’m in danger. I’m not welcome in Iraq and I’ll probably get killed the minute I land there. We need secular Muslims [in Congress] and Muslims who believe in freedom and want to be a non-radical voice.”
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