The presence of Gal Gadot was enough to wake up the Kuwaiti censors.
The American film
Death on the Nile
, adaptation by Kenneth Branagh of the novel by Agatha Christie and featuring the Israeli actress, has been banned from broadcasting in Kuwait, the country's authorities said on Sunday.
A censorship which is far from being a first, for films presenting Gal Gadot among the headliners.
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The Eternals
banned in several Gulf countries
Contacted by AFP, the Kuwaiti Ministry of Information confirmed information from the local press according to which the film, which will soon be released in several countries, will not be authorized in theaters in Kuwait.
Without, however, explaining the reason for the ban.
According to the Kuwaiti newspaper
Al-Qabas,
this decision would have been taken after calls for a boycott, launched on social networks, of the heroine of the film Gal Gadot.
For this new adaptation of the detective novel by Agatha Christie, the actress interprets the role, central in the plot, of the rich heiress Linnet Doyle.
Anti-Hamas statements
The film is however less at the heart of the boycott, than the remarks made eight years ago by the actress.
The actress notably defended Israel's deadly offensive against the Palestinian enclave of Gaza in the summer of 2014. This devastating war had led to the death of at least 2,251 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and left 74 dead. Israeli side, especially soldiers.
Gal Gadot then praised the Israeli army on Facebook and criticized the ruling Hamas in Gaza.
In 2017, the release of
Wonder Woman
, with Gal Gadot in the title role, had already been accompanied by a boycott of the film in several Arab countries, including Kuwait but also Tunisia.
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In support of the Palestinian cause, Kuwait still refuses normalization with Israel, unlike several Arab countries in the region which have signed agreements with the Jewish state in recent years.
On September 15, 2020, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain became the first Gulf Arab countries to publicly normalize their relations with Israel, at the instigation of Washington.
Dubbed
the 'Abraham Accords'
,
this first normalization treaty had also resulted in similar pacts with Morocco and Sudan.
They have been denounced by the Palestinians as a
"treason"
, the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict having long remained a prerequisite for any normalization of relations between Arab countries and Israel.
In May 2021, Kuwait summoned the Czech ambassador who expressed on social media his support for Israel during deadly clashes between the Jewish state and Hamas in Gaza.
He eventually apologized.