Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot is rallying behind Rotem Sela, one of Israel's top models and TV hosts, who drew fire from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for criticizing his fearmongering election campaign against the country's Arab minority.
Gal Gadot attends the LA premiere of"I Am the Night" at Harmony Gold Theater on Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019, in Los Angeles. JERUSALEM -- Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot has come to the rescue of a fellow Israeli celebrity in a spat with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Gadot responded late Sunday with her own supportive post for Sela to her more than 28 million followers on Instagram: Over the weekend, Culture Minister Miri Regev, a Netanyahu surrogate in the ruling Likud Party, repeated his mantra in a television interview. Sela, best known in Israel for hosting a pair of popular reality shows, was watching at home and responded angrily.
"I would like to clarify a point that, apparently, is not clear to slightly confused people in the Israeli public," he said. Israel "is the national state, not of all its citizens, but only of the Jewish people," he said. Many performers rely on government grants and municipal contracts, so taking an unpopular stance could cost them financially. Netanyahu has previously seized on controversial comments during election periods to bunch such entertainers together with the media and other "elites" to galvanize his traditional, working-class base.
Facing a possible loss in the last election in 2015, Netanyahu helped turn the tide with a midday video in which he warned his supporters that Arab voters were heading "in droves" to the polls. Though he later apologized, Netanyahu and his allies appear to be deploying the same tactic this time around.
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