Gal Gadot backs Israeli actress in quarrel with Netanyahu

Gal Gadot came out in favor of Rotem Sela, the actress who was recently criticized by Benjamin Netanyahu for saying “Israel is a country for all its citizens.”

By David Isaac, World Israel News

Gal Gadot, Israel’s most famous actress thanks to her role as Wonder Woman, supported Rotem Sela, the Israeli actress and TV host who became embroiled in a social media row with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Gadot wrote on her Instagram account: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

“This isn’t a matter of right or left, Jew or Arab, secular or religious. It’s a matter of dialog, of discussing peace and equality and our tolerance toward one another. The responsibility for sowing hope and light for a better future for our children is ours. Rotem, sister, you are an inspiration to us all,” Gadot wrote on Sunday in a pink banner over the image of Minister of Culture and Sport Miri Regev.

Rotem Sela had written on Instagram earlier a response to Regev, a member of the Likud party, who warned in a TV interview on Saturday that if the opposition Blue and White party was elected, it would mean a government set up with the help of the Arab parties.

Sela said that the interviewer should have asked, “‘And what’s the problem with Arabs?’ Good Lord, there are also Arab citizens in this country.”

“When the hell will someone in this government broadcast to the public that Israel is a country for all its citizens,” Sela wrote. “And every person was born equal. Arabs, too, God help us, are human beings. And so are the Druze. And so are gays, by the way, and lesbians, and…shock…leftists.”

On Sunday morning, Netanyahu himself responded to Sela’s comments.

“Dear Rotem, an important correction: Israel is not a state of all its citizens,” the prime minister said on Instagram.

“According to the Nation-State Law that we passed, Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish People – and them alone. As you wrote, there’s no problem with the Arab citizens of Israel – they have the same rights as us all and the Likud government has invested in the Arab sector more than any other government.”

However, the Likud party has also warned that a left-wing government would only survive with backing of Arab Knesset members, who do not support Israel as the Jewish State.

“A government like that would undermine the security of the state and citizens,” Netanyahu said in his reply to Sela.