Not that this will change anyone’s mind about her — inconvenient jihadi pronouncements can always be dismissed as a species of taqiyya — but it makes for an interesting follow-up to yesterday’s post.

“She is an honour to us, a honour to all of southern Lebanon,” her paternal aunt Afifa Fakih Said told AFP in Srifa, the beauty queen’s hometown…

Proudly showing off her niece’s photograph on the front page of local newspapers, her aunt Afifa offered baklava pastries to wellwishers pouring in to her home…

“We are so often described as terrorists and killers, but we Shiites love life and beauty — and mainly the beauty of the soul, which is what is so special about Rima,” said the veiled 62-year-old, who speaks English and French fluently.

“In this family, we are open to all religions,” she said. “We have no political affiliation to anyone.”…

In an interview with Lebanese television on Tuesday morning, Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah was asked his opinion on the new Miss USA.

“The criteria through which we evaluate women are different from those of the west,” he said.

Says terror expert Magnus Ranstorp, “She would be flogged if she showed up in any of Hezbollah’s neighborhoods in Beirut.” Exit question: What’s a better anti-Islamist story, Fakih’s win or that Saudi woman beating the hell out of one of the country’s “virtue” policeman?