I live in a country where people almost consider it a religious obligation to spew and espouse venom and odium of all sorts against Israel and everything related to the Jewish state including even the Jewish celebs who usually become a target of anti-Semitism for supporting their country’s efforts to safeguard its sovereignty against the nefarious designs of several regional nemesis and terrorist groups who have never been able to tolerate the evolution of Israel from a nascent state where persecuted Jews from around the world gathered in 1948 to a modern day progressive democracy and a scientific powerhouse in Middle East. I last time wrote about my admiration for Scientific and Technological developments of Israel after triumphantly mustering up enough courage to defy the odium taught to me conventionally by technically everyone around me from my elderly uncles to teachers. This time Iam writing with immense pleasure an ode from my side to the “Wonder Woman” Gal Gadot who has redefined the feminine power through her stellar performance within the capacity of a female-oriented role in a blockbuster movie releasing at a time when unfortunately there is heightened misogyny in world from the speeches of political leaders of some of the world’s big powers to those of religious leaders in one part of the world who think if a woman breaks free from the clutches of patriarchy it will be threatening to their malpractices, their unjustified domination and often unregulated oppressive policies.
I recently watched Gal Gadot’s blockbuster movie “Wonder Woman” without succumbing to all the anti-Semitic pressures which were being mounted by some of my friends and family members who equated my desire to watch a Gal Gadot (who served two years in the IDF as a combat trainer) starrer movie with helping IDF soldiers kill Muslim Arab brothers in Gaza. They also issued their so called individual Fatwas (Rulings on a point of Islamic law given by a recognized authority) on the movie and declared it a Haraam (Forbidden by Islamic law) movie and relentlessly told me that if you watch this movie you will commit a sin. I wasn’t able to stomach such anti-Semitic rubbish even for a single moment as it wasn’t just ant-Semitic but was also restraining my liberty to watch a movie I was eagerly willing to watch. Before I proudly announced my decision to watch Gal Gadot’s wonders in “Wonder Woman” in front of my friends they even also shared some idiotic tweet by a pseudo intellectual Pakistani actor who unscrupulously called the ravishing Israeli-American diva Gal Gadot a supporter of massacre of Palestinians and later on drew parallels between Zionism and Nazism which irked me a lot. My friends were trying to dissuade me from watching this movie through that nonsensical tweet but they instead augmented my curiosity to watch wonders of Gal Gadot as Princess Diana/Wonder Woman.
Gal Gadot didn’t fail to astound me with her immensely enthralling acting as Wonder Woman who leaves her home to end the conflict after being told by an American Pilot who rescued her about an ongoing World War. Princess Diana is being metamorphosed into Wonder Woman during her courageous endeavor to end the conflict. Diana is an immortal Amazon princess, demigoddess, the daughter of Queen Hippolyta and Zeus, and the half-sister of Ares. Describing Wonder Woman and her appeal, Gadot said "She's relatable. She has the heart of a human and is very compassionate, but her experiences – or lack of them, her naiveté, really – make her interested in everything around her and able to view the world in a way that we'd all like to: with a genuine curiosity”.Gadot’s comments were a true reflection of how much pleasure she had in her portrayal of a strong feminine role.
It was mournful and lamentable to see how this movie has been banned in some Arab countries like Lebanon and Qatar just because they couldn’t endure an Israeli actress in an American movie and they couldn’t just make a distinction between Art (which is a medium of love) and Political conflicts in the region. People living in those countries especially women (who are being regularly oppressed in the guise of Islamic law though Islam doesn’t permit maltreatment of women carried out by Mullahs for their own malign benefits) should ponder a bit at least for once that how a movie which shows a woman who wants to end conflict in the world is of no harm to them and it’s utterly shameful that her nationality determines that whether she should be praised or loathed not her talent and her art of acting in which she has excelled. Gadot should be seen as an artist who has done her art and job of acting perfectly well and those who think by boycotting her movie they will achieve their political agenda seems to dwell in a Fool’s Paradise.
Shalom everyone and loads of love and respect to Gal Gadot from one of her countless fans (a fan from an unexpected place notorious for its overt anti-Semitism, Pakistan).