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The Real Winner of the 70th Miss Universe Contest Is Israel
(Ha'aretz) Allison Kaplan Sommer - Officially, the winner of the Miss Universe contest in Eilat on Dec. 12 was Miss India. But the host country, Israel, also achieved a significant public relations victory. An estimated 600 million viewers in 172 countries were deluged with images of Israel not seen on the evening news. The broadcast included a montage of the 80 smiling international beauty queens touring the country, from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, exclaiming how they were "living history" and "felt at home," gushing ecstatically about the food. Israel was portrayed as a place to have fun, not dodge rockets. And each of the contestants' social media feeds featured their exploits and positive impressions of the country. The BDS movement called for a boycott of the event. The South African government withdrew its support for the participation of Miss South Africa. But Lalela Mswane defied the haters and competed anyway. She declared Israelis to be among the "friendliest people on Earth" and finished third. In the end, not even one country openly declared that they were boycotting the contest because of Israel. The two Muslim countries that stayed away - Malaysia and Indonesia - cited pandemic concerns, while the participation of Bahrain and Morocco was highly-publicized.