Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot waded into the Gaza crisis yesterday with a Twitter post that has seen her dubbed a war propagandist, an apologist for genocide and a supporter of apartheid.
Gadot, a former member of the IDF, said the “cycle has been going on long enough” and that “Israel deserves to live as a free and safe nation” before offering up thoughts and prayers for the victims of the conflict. This drew so much global condemnation that #CancelGalGadot began trending and as such, the actress has now turned off comments on the post, though she still left it up, as you can see below.
— Gal Gadot (@GalGadot) May 12, 2021
The conflict Gadot refers to arose from tensions over a ruling on the legality of evicting Palestinian residents from their homes. Gasoline was poured on the fire when the Israeli police stormed the al-Aqsa mosque and fired tear gas and stun grenades at worshippers on an Islamic holy day. Since then, Israel has begun bombarding the Gaza Strip with airstrikes, while rockets have been fired at them. As the death toll rises, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to step up the use of force and “inflict blows on them that they couldn’t even dream of.”
It’s an incredibly tense and complicated situation, and one most celebrities wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. But Gadot clearly has a strong emotional attachment to the IDF and continues to back their actions. Disabling comments doesn’t seem to have calmed things down, either, with social media criticizing her as an “apartheid foot soldier,” “a fictional hero who lives as a villain in real life” and a “literal supporter of war crimes.” Then again, she did win the praise of Ted Cruz.
Many have noted that Gal Gadot‘s next big movie is Death on the Nile, in which she’ll star alongside potential cannibal Armie Hammer and anti-vaxxer Letitia Wright. If this criticism picks up steam, we could be in for a very interesting press tour. It remains to be seen whether Gadot’s political nationalism will affect her career (I doubt it), but it’s safe to say that Wonder Woman’s mission of peace is looking kinda shaky today.