'Wonder Woman' star says the issue isn't Right or Left, it's about 'dialogue for peace.'
By AMY SPIROGal Gadot and Rotem Sela(photo credit: REUTERS/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)
Israeli actress Gal Gadot stepped in to defend her close friend Rotem Sela after a political fight broke out on Sunday.Earlier that day, Sela, also an actress and model in Israel, was chided by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Culture Minister Miri Regev for her Instagram post criticizing the treatment of Israeli Arabs."Love thy neighbor as thyself," Gadot wrote in Hebrew, on top of a screenshot of Sela's original post. "It's not an issue of Right or Left, Jew or Arab, secular or religious. It's an issue of dialogue," she said. "Of dialogue for peace, for equality, for tolerance between one another." Gadot added that the "responsibility to grow hope and light for a better future for our children is on us. Rotem, my sister, you are an inspiration to us all."The political firestorm began on Saturday evening, when Sela criticized Regev and reporter Rina Matsliah, who was interviewing the minister on Channel 12 News. Sela said both women deligitimized the Israeli-Arab population: “When will anyone in this government tell the public that this is a country of all its citizens, and all people are born equal. The Arabs are also human beings. And also the Druze, and the gays, and the lesbians and... gasp... leftists.”In response, Netanyahu posted on Facebook this morning offering a "correction" to Sela, telling her that Israel is "not a country of all its citizens" after the Nation-State Law was passed. The prime minister said that Arabs have full equal rights in Israel, but that it is and remains only "the nation-state of the Jewish nation."Sela and Gadot have been close friends for many years, and frequently vacation together abroad.
