Miss Israel 2015 took a selfie with three other Miss Universe candidates and the photo soon became a controversy in just a matter of minutes. Apparently, Lebanon was enraged that the person they sent to represent them had been fraternizing with the enemy.
What started as merely a photograph escalated into a global topic. The Internet was abuzz with allegations regarding various Israeli offenses, both major and minor, over the weekend.
Hezbollah fighters were killed when Israel launched an airstrike in Syria. According to Hezbollah loyalists, it was a provocation. They posted pictures of the funeral of one of the most prominent victims, who happened to be the son of top commander Imad Mughniyeh. Mughniyeh was assassinated in Damascus back in 2008 in an attack, which they also linked to Israel.
They honored the victim by posting the slogan "Je Suis Jihad Imad Mughniyeh" on social media, which was pretty much the same with what the surviving staff of Charlie Hebdo did. The online post was shared thousands of times.
This was only the outpouring of Hezbollah loyalists. Now, though, it would seem that a huge part of the nation had united in their outrage over a different reason. On Jan. 11, Miss Israel 2015, Doron Matalon, took a snapshot of herself with some of the pretty ladies that she hung out with in Miami, where this year's Miss Universe Pageant is to take place.
Miss Lebanon, Saly Greige, was seated right next to her. The other two ladies were Miss Slovenia and Miss Japan. It looked like a pretty harmless photo as they were all smiling beautifully into the camera. However, shortly after it was posted, it quickly made its rounds all over the Internet. An Israeli, with the word "Israel" seen right beside Miss Lebanon, largely displeased many Lebanese people.
People started to bash Greige. A journalism student on Twitter wrote, "You don't represent Lebanon." However, there were also others who were quite supportive of their country's candidate. A dentistry student wrote, "You are beautiful. It's one image. Others are doing much more terrible things, and no one says a word about it."
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