Miss Palestine to compete on global stage

DUBAI

Nadeen Ayoub, the first Palestinian to compete in Miss Universe, will step onto the stage at the height of one of the most harrowing periods in her people's history, determined to show they are more than headlines of war.

"We're more than our struggle and pain," she told AFP in Dubai, where she is preparing to raise the Palestinian flag at the pageant in Thailand in November.

"Right now, our people need a voice and we don't want our identity to be erased," she said, nearly two years into the Israel-Hamas war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza.

Ayoub said she wanted to showcase her homeland's rich heritage and beauty, to humanize a people long reduced to just their suffering.

Palestinians are also "children who want to live, women who have dreams and aspirations," said the beauty queen, her fair face framed by long dark brown hair.

Ayoub lives between Ramallah, Amman, and Dubai, where she founded an organization that trains content creators on sustainability and artificial intelligence.

She grew up in the occupied West Bank, the United States and Canada. After earning degrees in English literature and psychology, she went on to teach and work for NGOs in the occupied territories.

"My parents are both academics and they always told me to focus on my university studies," she said.

But after modelling at a fashion show in Italy, people working in the industry encouraged her to look into competing in beauty pageants, so she launched a Miss Palestine franchise.

"Something as simple as having a [Miss Palestine] organization is difficult," even though it is a given in other countries, she said.

Part of the difficulty is that Palestinians are divided between the occupied West Bank, besieged Gaza and annexed East Jerusalem, while many are refugees in neighboring countries, living abroad or in Israel.

In 2022, the first Miss Palestine pageant was held online to allow for Palestinians scattered abroad, in Israel and in the territories to participate.

As the first winner of the title, Ayoub has worked on the organization’s philanthropic activities and competed in Miss Earth, an environmentally minded pageant, in 2022.