American beauty pageant winners view remnants of Gaza rockets in Sderot. Photo: Provided photo.

JNS.org – A delegation of 11 American beauty pageant winners took a five-day trip to Israel last week.

“If Israel had a ‘cover’ title based on what the media portrays, it would be ‘danger,’ ‘warfare,’ ‘disagreement,’ ‘pain,’ ‘death,’ ‘conflict’… and yet after just the first day I realized that this couldn’t be any further from the truth,” said Alicia Monique Blanco, Miss Arizona USA 2009.

The trip was organized by The Face of Israel organization, which offers tours for influential global figures. In Israel, the beauty queens visited all of the standard tourist destinations—like Jerusalem’s Old City, the Dead Sea, and Yad Vashem—but they also got off the beaten path, with visits to the rocket-battered city of Sderot and Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon.

“[Israelis] have created an exquisite, highly innovative country that provides job security, democracy, health insurance, and top-quality education to people of all religions and races. Most importantly, they value life over death,” said Kristen Dalton, Miss USA 2009.