‘Wonder Woman’ Star Gal Gadot Calls Out Benjamin Netanyahu Over ‘Jewish People’ Comment

On Sunday, Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot called out Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after he criticized fellow Israeli star, Rotem Sela, saying that the country is the homeland “only of the Jewish people.”

“Love thy neighbor,” the Israeli actress wrote in Hebrew on her Instagram story on Sunday following the feud.

“It is not a matter of right or left, Arabs or Jews, secular or religious,” she added. “It is a matter of dialogue, of dialogue for peace, and of our tolerance for each other. It is our responsibility to shine hope and light for a better future for our children.”

On Sunday, Netanyahu took to Instagram to address Sela’s fiery post which criticized Netanyahu’s party and defended the rights of Arab Israelis. Her post came after Miri Regev, a top minister for Netanyahu’s Likud party, said in an interview that if Netanyahu loses the election, then his main opponent Benny Gantz, will rely on Arabs to form a government.

“When the hell will someone in this government let the Israeli public know that this is a country for all its citizens and that every person is born equal. And also, that the Arabs are human beings,” Sela wrote. Shortly after, Netanyahu responded to the star on Facebook writing, “Dear Rotem Sela, I read what you wrote earlier. First of all, an important correction: Israel is not a country for all of its citizens. According to the law that we passed Israel is the national state of the Jewish people solely. As you wrote, there is no problem with the Arab citizens, they have equal rights like all of us and the Likud government invested in the Arab sector more than any other government.”

Last year Israel’s approval of a “nation-state” law, which declared that only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country and downgraded Arabic as an official language was unsettling to the country’s minorities which makes up around 20 percent of the population.  But Sela criticized Netanyahu’s talking point on how his political rivals will form a government with Arab political parties after the April 9 elections. 

Since the two’s social media feud the Wonder Woman star hasn’t been the only one to take notice of Netanyahu and Sela’s posts, as several other high-profile Israelis chimed into the matter. Including Israeli President Reuven Rivlin who condemned the recent “unacceptable discourse” about Arab citizens of Israel. 

“Recently, when political thinking is turning all reason on its head, we hear entirely unacceptable remarks about the Arab citizens of Israel. I refuse to believe that there are political parties that have surrendered the character of #Israel as a Jewish and democratic state,” he wrote on Twitter. 

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“The State of #Israel has complete equality of rights for all its citizens,” he added. “There are no first-class citizens, and there are no second-class voters. We are all equal in the voting booth. We are all represented at the Knesset.”