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By Sara Elghobashy December 29, 2009 The coronation of the new Miss Palestine was scheduled to take place last Saturday after the final round of the competition was complete. But a week before judges were to narrow down the contestants from 10 hopeful young women to just 1, organizers announced that they would be postponing the beauty contest indefinitely. The Ramallah Governorate announced that the decision was based on public pressure to respect the anniversary of the Gaza massacre, which occurred just one day after the competition was to take place. Earlier in the month, pageant organizer Salwa Yousef seemed “genuinely surprised,” according to The National, when asked about the decision to hold the event at such a morbid time.  Her response was, “We are not political,” but it looks like that has changed. Besides, not political? I understand that, but are you also insensitive? The pageant seemed to be having problems beyond poor scheduling. Trip Fashion, the company behind Miss Palestine, had yet to secure sponsorship for the advertised first prize of NIS 10,000 ($2,700), a week-long vacation in Turkey and a car. There were also reports of several contestants dropping out of the competition before it even began. So the decision to postpone the show was perhaps not just about public pressure to observe a tragic event. This thing sounds like an all out disaster. Pageant organizers were hoping to use the Miss Palestine competition to give Palestine a new face - one that wasn’t political - and to clear up misconceptions about the Palestinian people. But you should never underestimate the media, because almost every story on the competition focused on the politics, especially the conflicting views between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas about whether the event was “immoral” or not. The Palestinian Authority seemed apathetic to the event. They weren’t involved in the competition in any way, but they didn’t care if it took place.  Hamas, on the other hand, not so much. They certainly fell on the “this is immoral” side of things. But I wonder, is this more or less immoral than women riding motorbikes? I just wasn’t quite sure where to place beauty contest on the “Hamas Hates This” scale. But the Miss Palestine contestants (the ones that remained) were unfazed by traditionalist arguments. “If we were to listen to them, we would never do anything,” said 23-year-old contestant Muna Ennab. She and 24-year-old contestant Samar Quzmar defended the pageant, even going as far as to call it “liberating."(Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, ladies. Beauty pageants are certainly not liberating.) There is no telling when the competition will return (or if it will return at all) but you can bet that there will be more mention of politics when it does. As The National said, in addition to “[featuring] pretty girls,” Miss Palestine “provided a possible new angle on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.” Well that’s about the best thing that’s ever happened to news. Not. Photo by: AWAD AWAD/AFP/Getty Images http://www.elanthemag.com/index.php/site/blog_detail/miss_palestine_competition_cant_escape_the_politics-nid208746154/