Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Gal Gadot Branded ‘Mossad Agent’ By Arab Paper — Would She Really Have Time To Spy?

Gal Gadot really is a Wonder Woman — a former Miss Israel winner who served in the IDF, a movie star who films blockbusters while pregnant, a feminist icon who has taken stances against accused sexual predators and high heels — is there anything she can’t do?

According to the Times of Israel, Lebanese paper Al Liwaa tested the limits of Gadot’s accomplishments on Monday, publishing her photograph in a front page article about an alleged Israeli spy with the caption “the Israeli Mossad officer Collette Vianfi.” Gal Gadot: Hollywood sensation by day, Mossad agent by night.

Is Gal Gadot just a code name? Is our beloved actress’ existence just a really, really elaborate ruse to cover up the identity of a Mossad agent intriguingly named Collette Vianfi? Are all women supposed to be holding down two full-time jobs plus parenting?

For better or for worse, no. The newspaper issued an apology, calling the use of the incorrect image (a production still from Gadot’s “Fast Five” movie) “an unintended technical error.” But the news story, which claims that a Mossad officer named Collette Vianfi recruited Lebanese playwright Ziad Itani to smuggle political information, could make a great star vehicle for Gadot one day.

Jenny Singer is a writer for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.