How actress Gal Gadot became a lightning rod for anti-Israel hate

Telegraph

2 days ago

Hollywood actress Gal Gadot is currently dashing around the streets of London while filming her new movie The Runner. But the surrounding Metropolitan Police presence isn't part of this fictional action thriller: officers have been deployed to the set in response to demonstrators targeting Gadot due to her Israeli nationality.
It's the latest incident in a concerted and increasingly vehement campaign. The prominent Wonder Woman star has become a lightning rod for anti-Israeli sentiment since the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack in 2023 and subsequent military escalation and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Five people were arrested near Gadot's film set in Westminster on Wednesday. According to a Metropolitan Police statement, in recent weeks 'protestors have disrupted filming at various locations across London. They have done so solely because an actress involved in the production is Israeli.' The protestors were arrested for harassment and for wrongfully and unlawfully obstructing access to a workplace.
Just a few days earlier, last Sunday morning, keffiyeh-wearing activists also gathered on Waterloo Bridge where Gadot was filming. They banged metal saucepan lids, blared sirens and shouted chants through megaphones like 'Gal Gadot, you can't hide'. The protestors also displayed Palestinian flags and signs with slogans such as, 'Trash Gadot not welcome in London!', and a large red banner with the message 'Stop starving Gaza'. Officers from Scotland Yard were called to the scene and moved the protestors away, although no arrests were made.
The aggressive targeting of Gadot, 40, isn't confined to London, either. Earlier this week her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles was defaced, with vandals writing 'Baby killer' in black pen and changing her surname from Gadot to 'Greestien' – the latter a misspelling of her Jewish family's original name Greenstein, which was changed before Gadot was born.
The vandals also added a sticker reading 'Israeli snipers target children'. The Campaign Against Antisemitism denounced the defacement in a statement, saying: 'Medieval antisemitic tropes like the blood libel [a false accusation of ritualised murder] are alive and well. Parts of humanity really haven't progressed at all.'
Gadot, who has not commented publicly on the protests, has previously spoken of her immense pride at receiving her star on the Walk of Fame. Speaking at the unveiling ceremony in March, she said: 'I'm just a girl from a town in Israel. This star will remind me that with hard work and passion and some faith, anything is possible.'
But as pro-Palestinian protestors continue to target the very visible Gadot, is her Hollywood dream turning into a nightmare?
Disney's dismal live-action version of Snow White, released in March, might have been a box office bomb anyway, but the surrounding political firestorm certainly didn't help its chances. In the PR circus in the run-up to the film's release, all of the focus was on the opposing views of its two stars and their reported rift. Rachel Zegler, playing the titular princess, drew criticism after she posted the movie's trailer online with the comment 'And always remember, free Palestine' – as did Gadot, for her support of Israel.
Gadot was born in Petah Tikva to Jewish parents of European descent. Her mother, Irit, is the daughter of Holocaust survivors and, at the age of 11, Gadot was taken to visit Holocaust sites in Poland.
Many of the activists now seeking to cancel the actress call her a 'soldier', citing her time in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). However, Gadot didn't choose to become a soldier: service in the IDF is compulsory. She was conscripted into the army aged 20, and spent much of her mandatory two years of service working as a combat trainer, teaching fitness. She also learned martial arts techniques such as Krav Maga. Speaking to Canadian magazine Fashion in 2016, Gadot said: 'There is something special in giving back to your community.'
When the statuesque Gadot burst onto cinema screens as the new Wonder Woman in 2017, both reviewers and fans admired that military-honed strength and athleticism. The fact that she is a real-life ass-kicking woman with muscular limbs lent authenticity to this empowering female superhero. How times have changed: now that same history is held against her.
Conversely, Gadot has also been criticised by her countrymen for her relatively measured statements. In 2019, responding to president Benjamin Netanyahu 's assertion that Israel is 'not a state of all its citizens', Gadot wrote a now-deleted post on Instagram striking a very different tone. 'Love thy neighbor,' she said. 'It is not a matter of right or left, Arabs or Jews, secular or religious. It is a matter of […] dialogue for peace, and of our tolerance for each other.'
In 2021, during the Israel-Palestine crisis, Netanyahu's son Yair unfavourably compared Gadot's public statements with what he termed the 'antisemitic propaganda' coming from models Gigi and Bella Hadid, who are of Palestinian descent. Yair complained on Twitter that the only comparable high-profile Israeli celebrity, Gadot, had chosen to 'write a neutral post [on Instagram] as if she was from Switzerland'.
But Gadot has been more vocal and more partisan since the horrific terrorist attack on her home country in October 2023. She posted the names of the 80 Israeli hostages on her social media along with hashtags like #BringThemBack and #ReleaseTheHostages.
Speaking to Variety in March, she explained: 'When people were abducted from their homes, from their beds, men, women, children, elderly, Holocaust survivors […] I could not be silent. I was shocked by the amount of hate.' She concluded: 'I had to speak up.'
Yet Gadot, who is a mother of four, added a clarification: 'I am praying for better days for all. I want everybody to have good life and prosperity, and the ability to raise their children in a safe environment.'
That month she also made an impassioned speech at the Anti-Defamation League's Never Is Now event. 'None of us can ignore the explosion of Jew-hatred around the world any more,' said Gadot. 'My name is Gal, and I'm Jewish, and we have had enough of Jew-hatred.'
Gadot, a vocal feminist, specifically addressed the horrific treatment of female Israelis attacked by Hamas, saying: 'On October 7, Jewish women were sexually terrorised, raped, murdered and kidnapped by Hamas.' She continued: 'We were all hoping to hear support from our sisters around the world and too often heard silence.'
She backed Israel's entrant in the Eurovision Song Contest, Yuval Raphael, too, who was also the target of vociferous protestors, including an attempt by two people to scupper her performance by rushing the stage. The protests came despite the fact that Raphael sustained shrapnel injuries during the Nova festival massacre. In a video call ahead of the final, Gadot told Raphael (who would go on to storm into second place overall after winning the public vote): 'You've already won – now it's just about enjoying it.'
But regardless of how, and how much, Gadot publicly engages with the complex and emotional issues surrounding Gaza, she is doing so as a private citizen – not a member of the Israeli government or military.
She might be in London filming a glamorous movie for a six-figure salary, rather than trudging into an office, but she is still doing her job, as are her cast mates and crew. Does her A-lister fame mean she is fair game for protestors to interrupt her at work?
Perhaps the bigger worry for the 40-year-old actress and mum is whether this could tank her career – either through boycotts of her movies, or the costs and headaches for studios of protecting her. Disney reportedly had to beef up security for Gadot after she received death threats during that ill-fated Snow White press tour. Not exactly a Hollywood happily ever after.