The granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, “Wonder Woman” star Gal Gadot is refusing to back down in her support of her native Israel.
Gadot, who, as an Israeli citizen, served the mandatory two years in the Israel Defense Forces, said during a recent interview with Variety she rarely speaks out on current events because, she asked rhetorically, “Who cares about the celebrity talking about politics?”
“I’m an artist,” she explained. “I want to entertain people. I want to bring hope and be a beacon of light whenever I say anything about the world.”
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The 39-year-old celebrity continued, “But, on Oct. 7, when people were abducted from their homes, from their beds, men, women, children, elderly, Holocaust survivors, were going through the horrors of what happened that day, I could not be silent. I was shocked by the amount of hate, by the amount of how much people think they know when they actually have no idea, and also by how the media is not fair many times. So I had to speak up.”
In 2023, about a month after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Gadot and her husband, Yaron Varsano, helped organize a screening of IDF footage of atrocities carried out by Hamas villains who terrorized Israelis.
The screening, put together by Gadot and Oscar-winning Israeli director Guy Nattiv, was produced for a group of Hollywood elites. It comprised of 47 minutes of footage collected by IDF members.
When Hamas first attacked the Holy Land, Gadot, for her part, unabashedly stood with the Jewish state. She wrote in an Instagram post, “I stand with Israel[.] You should too. The world cannot sit on the fence when these horrific acts of terror are happening!”
She’s remained steadfast in her advocacy for Israel.
“I’m not a hater,” Gadot said. “I’m a grandchild of a Holocaust survivor who came to Israel and established his family from scratch after his entire family was erased in Auschwitz. And on the other side of my family, I’m eighth-generation Israeli. I’m an indigenous person of Israel.”
“I am all about humanity and I felt like I had to advocate for the hostages,” she continued. “[W]hen your compass is clear, your conscience is clean. I know what I’m advocating for, and I know what I wish for the world. 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.”
Gadot — the first Israeli actor to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame — faced delays Tuesday, when pro-Palestinian protesters crashed the event.
Just a few days earlier, on March 4, during a speech at the Anti-Defamation League’s annual summit, the “Death on the Nile” star decried the antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment that has become so commonplace in the United States.
“Never did I imagine that, on the streets of the United States and different cities around the world, we would see people not condemning Hamas, but celebrating, justifying, and cheering on a massacre of Jews,” she said. “[H]ere’s the thing: however much you tried to avoid it before, even if speaking up wasn’t really your thing, none of us can ignore the explosion of Jew-hatred around the world anymore.”
Gadot continued, “My name is Gal, and I’m Jewish, and we have had enough of Jew-hatred. On Oct. 7, Jewish women were sexually terrorized, raped, murdered, and kidnapped by Hamas. We were all listening, hoping to hear support from our sisters around the world and, too often, heard silence. We can’t wait any longer; we can’t hold our breath and pray or beg from support from people, groups, communities that don’t want to be there for us. We need to be there for ourselves.”
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