Israeli actress Shira Haas was cast to play the controversial character Sabra [Getty]
Pro-Palestine campaigners are calling for a boycott of the new Captain America film over its inclusion of the Israeli superhero Sabra, portrayed by former Israeli soldier Shira Haas.
Dozens of protesters gathered outside the Hollywood premiere of Brave New World on Tuesday night, holding signs reading “Boycott Captain America”, “Sabra has got to go”, and “Disney supports genocide”, according to Variety.
They also chanted “Free, free, free Palestine”.
Calls to boycott the film date back to 2022 when it was first announced that the character would make its big screen debut in it.
Sabra is the mutant alter ego of Israeli intelligence agent and police officer Ruth Bat-Seraph. The character in the comics wears the colours of the Israeli flag and the Star of David and is seen as a symbol that glorifies the state of Israel.
The film’s producers were forced to dilute the character’s links to Israel following the backlash, making her a US operative rather than a Mossad agent.
“She’s Israeli, but she’s not Mossad. Now she works in the US government,” producer Nate Moore recently told The National.
Campaigners have also criticised the studio for its decision to cast Shira Haas, who volunteered to serve in the Israeli military despite being exempted from mandatory service for medical reasons.
Sabra has a double meaning to Israelis and Arabs. To Israeli Jews, it refers to a person born in Israel but for Arabs, the word is synonymous with the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre, where Israeli troops facilitated the killing of hundreds of civilians by Lebanese militia.
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement is calling on people to boycott Marvel and Disney for their inclusion of Sabra in the film.
“Marvel and Disney are reviving the racist character of Ruth Bat-Seraph, whose decades-old backstory includes working for Mossad,” it writes on its website.
“Disney+ is therefore clearly implicated in enabling Israel’s genocide by dehumanizing Palestinians.”
Brave New World, which opens on 14 February in the US and UK, has been met with lukewarm reviews from critics.
The film has a 43 percent rating on the Metacritic review aggregator site and scores 53 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics panning its bland characters, poor visual effects and uneven plot.
