Israeli actress Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. A new trailer for the superhero film debuted Saturday. Photo: Twitter.

A leading feminist who wrote an essay about the superhero Wonder Woman, to accompany a 1972 book about the 1940s comic strip, blasted the women denouncing the star of the new action movie – all for being a proud Israeli.

Responding to hostile social media posts against actress Gal Gadot that began to appear with the release this week of the “Wonder Woman” trailer, author Phyllis Chesler told The Algemeiner, “These faux feminists have been conditioned, like attack dogs on a short leash, to salivate, bark and try to bite the enemy they’ve been trained to assault.”

As was pointed out by pro-Israel blogger Elder of Ziyon on Monday, women were prominent among those tweeting anti-Gadot comments. These included:

 ok wtvr just gonna pretend gal gadot wasnt a zionist combat trainer in the idf so i can enjoy wonder woman

Chesler, professor emerita of psychology and women’s studies at the College of Staten Island (CUNY) and the author of 15 books – most recently An American Bride in Kabul: A Memoir (2013), about her 1961 marriage to an Afghani and her time spent in his harem – said, “These ‘politically correct’ faux-feminists are afraid to rail against barbaric misogyny, honor-based violence and Islamic gender and religious apartheid as practiced in the disputed territories; they have only been empowered to blame Israel and Israelis — for the crimes committed by others. Do they believe that the Muslim-on-Muslim and Muslim-on-infidel crimes in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan are caused by Israel? Will they reject medical cures and cellphone technology because Israelis discovered them? If not, why reject a feminist Wonder Woman because an Israeli actress is beautiful and talented enough — has been chosen above all others — to play this action figure?”

In an interview with The Algemeiner in December, Chesler answered these rhetorical questions by asserting that “Western feminists have become totally Stalinized and Palestinianized.”

Concluding by putting in a good word both for the Jewish state and the movie star in question, Chesler said,  “As all feminists know, I am passionately pro-Israel because I am passionate about the truth and about justice. Just think: It all started with me, a Zionist, just like Gal Gadot.”

In 1972-1973, Ms. magazine editor Gloria Steinem edited and introduced a book of Wonder Woman stories from the 1940s, by the original team of William Moulton Marston and Harry Peters, making the case that Marston purposely made the superhero a role model for girls and women. Chesler, a contemporary of Steinem’s and fellow feminist, wrote the interpretive essay accompanying the book.