Accused rapist Yaniv Nahoum wearing a tarboush (Flickr)
Wonder Woman isn’t quite as wonderful as she appears.
In the past few days, a woman who has chosen to remain nameless published a chilling story about her rape at the hands of a friend’s boyfriend in Milan in 2004. She was a young woman of 18, just starting out in the modeling business. She went to Milan to work and met Gal Gadot, a recent Miss Israel winner and a more experienced model. Gadot’s then roommate had just been hospitalized after she was raped and was returning home at the tender age of 15.
So Gadot was looking for a new roommate. the woman and Gadot became fast friends and the 19 year-old Israeli model treated her as a protegé, showing her the ropes of the business. One of the major subjects between them was the various male leeches and hangers-on who preyed on young models either financially or sexually.
Gadot, in the anonymous woman’s account, eventually introduced her to her good friends, including an Israeli couple named Ayala and Yaniv. She became fast friends with them and spent considerable amounts of time, including weekends in their company. Then Ayala went on a modeling assignment to Greece the same week Gadot went on a separate assignment to Ireland.
With his girlfriend out-of-town, Yaniv invited Gadot’s roommate out for dinner. Since her previous experience had been so comfortable and she believed they were good friends, she accepted. Knowing she had little experience of booze, he plied her with drinks and eventually, she claims, mixed a date drug into her glass. Yaniv took her to his apartment as she stumbled down the street. Before she knew it, he’d removed her clothes and was raping her. The act was brutal and violent. Afterward, she says she could hear Yaniv calling a male friend to boast of his “conquest.”
When Gadot returned from her modeling trip and discovered what had happened she flew into a rage against the rape victim. She blamed the young girl for putting herself into the situation to being with. Though she would not have wanted to admit this, she must’ve blamed herself for harming her friend Ayala, since Gadot was the one who introduced the young model to their circle. The Israeli model repeatedly hectored her roommate into writing an apology to Ayala for permitting the rape to happen. But the victim refused and eventually left Milan and the modeling profession.
Clearly (and the victim says this herself), Gadot is not at fault for the rape itself. But if the story is true (and remember that only 2-8% of rape charges are found false), then Gadot behaved abominably in putting her relationship with her Israeli friend above her responsibility to the rape victim. No doubt, Gadot did this to protect herself from having to feel any blame in the matter. But that excuses nothing.
If this account is true, it puts the lie to Gadot’s righteous indignation at warning Warner Brothers that she would not work on her next film if its producer, Brett Ratner appears on set. Ratner himself is accused of multiple accounts of preying on young boys. She apparently got her way as the studio axed Ratner’s participation. Power has its privileges. Now perhaps Gadot can explain her own apparent cruelty in the face of similar charges.
The victim in her Twitter account offers further information about her rapist, who she names as Yaniv Nahoum. He has a LinkedIn account and has worked, where else, in Israeli high-tech. He’s been a software engineer for AT&T for the past six years. His Flickr account shows adorable photos of him goofing off with his spouse. Yes, there are pictures of his “bachelor party” on Facebook, so the boy has managed to find a woman who will accept his peccadillos. By now, she’s probably heard about Yaniv’s past and is having to deal with it. UPDATE: Since this post was published and I sent him a Facebook message offering to convey his response to the charges against him, Nahoum has closed down his Flickr account. A reader commented in the thread for this post that he’d examined the Flickr account and found an album titled “Milan” going back to the period in question. That could be why he shut down the account. Interestingly, he hasn’t shut down his LinkedIn or Facebook accounts.
Finally, in her post the author of the rape account notes that at one point Gadot spoke angrily against Palestinians and disparaged them. In fact, she shilled willing for the IDF during Operation Protective Edge. The pro-Israel brigades on Twitter have gone on the warpath. Apparently, Ava is a slut and a whore and a liar not because of her story, but solely because she impugned Gal Gadot’s pro-Israeli political views. If you read the tweets they’re an incredible example of individuals shutting down their rational processes in the face of troubling information.
The model-victim first published her post on Medium (here is the original post in Google cache). After she did so, the platform’s legal department sent her this strange letter. Apparently, if you are a rape victim you can’t name your rapist or his accessory because doing so will “incite hatred” against them. I guess the lawyers don’t take into account the level of violence and hate the victim suffered during her rape.
What’s further ironic about this is that Jenny Listman published her compelling account on Medium of being fondled by Elie Wiesel when she was a young girl. Listman named Wiesel. But her account was not removed. My guess is that dead men don’t have lawyers and Hollywood celebrities have very good ones. If you use the Medium platform you might want to query them about why they behaved so abominably toward Ava.
I asked Medium for comment and was advised their “PR team” would reply. I tweeted to the victim and she has not replied. A website for an agency claiming to represent Gal Gadot has a broken email address. If anyone has information about her current agent or management please let me know. I will update if there are responses.
Assuming the worst, and I do not, Gal Gadot was 19 years old when this incident happened.
Let’s have a frank discussion about your unblemished teens.
This is one of your uglier hatchet pieces, smearing a 19 year old for one thing she may have done fourteen years ago.
I bet you feel big after you whittle someone else down. You’re soooooooo moral, Richard.
Please.
THIS is a hatchet piece?
Now I know you are a hasbarist troll who probably lives in Israel and either does this as a hobby or gets a check from somebody much like the mainland Chinese “50 Cent Army” or the Russian IRA “troll factory”, but it hasn’t been working. At all.
No one can defend this. This is absolutely indefensible. Gal Gadot should be removed from the Wonder Woman franchise; there is no justifying this kind of evil. I’m 19 years old, I would never, ever, ever do this to anybody. Her having been 19 years old is no excuse at all, if you are a GOOD PERSON and somebody comes up to you, specifically YOUR COWORKER or even FRIEND to tell you they were raped….you do NOT do this to them! WTF?! Then her behavior lately with refusing to renounce her pay check that she made working with a known predator, I mean just how evil is this woman?!
I’m sorry but she needs to go. This is WONDER WOMAN we’re talking about, this is like the WORST thing that can happen. Wonder Woman actress is a rapist enabler! How man more women were victimized by that guy because of her actions?! She’s apart of the rape culture! There is nothing to be said that will ever take away what she’s done. Those victims wont stop being victims, she ruined somebody’s life. She can’t be Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman would never do this to people!
@Zionaut: I never raped anyone. I never was an accessory after the fact to rape as Gadot was. I never introduced anyone to a friend who raped her. When I finally met someone who was raped I comforted her.
How dare you insinuate otherwise. Clearly you had a very different upbringing than i.
And yes, a woman who behaved so abominably 14 yrs ago who now has the chutzpah to say she opposes rape–she is a scummy hypocrite.
אל תדין את חברך עד שתגיע למקומו
None of us was in her shoes at that moment.
But even worse, Richard himself have doubt as he writes “If this account is true…” and Eva isn’t exposing her real name so there is no way to know whether this is even true. But that won’t stop the smearing of a possibly innocent guy.
@Eli: Abusing Talmud to justify rape. Now I’ve seen everything.
Why would you demand a woman who was raped by a close friend of one of the most powerful actresses in Hollywood reveal her name? So she can be doxxed by hasbarists like you and be fired from her job or harassed or get death threats?
Plus, are you claiming she’s one of the incredibly small number of women who falsely claim rape?
The quote from Talmud wasn’t for the alleged rapist but for 19 years old Gadot who didn’t rape anyone.
And no, I don’t claim “Ava” is in the minority of liars, I say for all we know she can be a 50 years old man living with his mother.
It’s not that I need to know her name but someone should. If she served a complaint, at least the judge would know but in this case, sure it can be fabricated. What are the sources? An anonymous Twitter acouunt and an anonymous website?
@Eli: No woman and no man who has had a loved one who was raped would have the heartlessness & abject ignorance to make the claims you have. And yes i have been in (or as close as it’s possible to be w/o being raped myself) the place of someone raped, so i know what I’m talking about.
Any woman or man who’s known a woman who was raped would know that no one would make a false rape charge. And you are claiming Ava is among the 2% who do. And I am saying you are a heartless, brutal male ignoramus.
No more comments for you in this thread.
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Power user
@Richard
“And yes i have been in (or as close as it’s possible to be w/o being raped myself) the place of someone raped,”
Gal Gadot was 19 years old when this allegedly happened, and, as a society, we judge teenagers differently than adults. She wasn’t even old enough to buy a beer 14 years ago, but she’s now being judged as an adult. The fact that she is now taking a courageous and public stance on sexual abuse in Hollywood proves that she is now a mature adult.
Since she’s Israeli, the whip comes down.
Since she supports her the country’s military, the whip comes down.
Since she may have said something rude about the Arabs 14 years ago, the whip comes down.
Richard. Did you do anything wrong when you were 19 old? Can you share now?
@ Zionauts:
NO, actually we don’t. 19 year olds ARE adults. They are, or should be responsible adults. Not to mention that Gal Gadot at 19 purported to know the ropes of Milan and purported to be knowledgeable about the male predators prowling the fashion world there. One problem: she didn’t realize her own friend’s boyfriend was one of them. That should require some humility on Gadot’s part, some realization that she thoroughly misjudged someone she had trusted and to whom she’d introduced her roommate. But that didn’t happen because Gadot was & is a selfish, mean-spirited, heartless person (as are you).
NOnsense, in Milan she couldn’t bought any drink or drug she wished at her age.
No, it actually proves she’s a f(&king hypocrite who refuses to acknowledge her past cruelty toward a rape victim.
This proves there’s a hasbara central directing your comment content. A supposedly separate commenter posted almost exactly the same lame question to me. You didn’t even bother to read my response that time. I am about to ban you.
Here’s the answer I offered to the earlier moron. My answer is that not only at 19, but at no other time in my life have I ever introduced any woman to any friend who raped her. Never. But I have known women who were raped and I have behaved toward them with 1000% more understanding that Gal Gadot or you have shown.
You disgust me. Annoy me one more time for any reason & you’re history. Comment again in this thread & you’re history. Oh, but I know you can come back like a bad penny as any commenter you like. You guys sprout like poisonous mushrooms after a rain.
Oh & by the way, did you stop to think that Gal might’ve introduced her earlier 15 year old roommate to HER rapist? A pleasant thought.
[Comment deleted: comments must be substantive and have an argument.]
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And hope curious that in her short article ‘Ava’ found the time and words to mention Gadot’s take on the Palestinian issue. Isn’t that just too easy?
@ Eli: Gee, I guess rape victims have to live according to your terms, have your own political views (or better yet none), and write about their rape the way you think they should. Do you know how preposterous & chauvinist you sound?
That woman can do and say what she wants about her own suffering. If you don’t like it or agree with it you can go to hell.
And don’t comment again in this thread.
Setting aside Israel, Palestine, the IDF and all that jazz. This is a completely anonymous account which you haven’t even been able to verify with the accuser. You keep on citing statistics that most accusations are true but we don’t even know that there is a real woman behind the accusation. For all we know, this was written by a 53 year old man living in Wyoming. One thing that should set off your alarm bells is the lack of a photo. I would expect her to have a photo with Gadot and to share it with her image blurred out to at least establish she was in Milan with Gadot.
I also think it’s pretty obvious why medium would not allow anonymous accusations against a private individual on their platform.
@ Josh:
No, let’s not. Because you and I know the only reason you wrote the rest of your comment is precisely because of Israel, Palestine, the IDF, etc.
When you’re raped or your wife or sister or daughter are raped (God forbid) and then decide they’re going to offer a public account of their suffering, call me because I want to read back to you your heartless comments which deign to decide on behalf of a rape victim how she should tell her story to the world. I got one word for ya buddy (actually more than one): you don’t get to decide for her. She does. She can identify herself. She can remain anonymous. She can call herself whatever she wants or nothing at all.
Nor do you get to determine whether her story is right or fair or credible or anything. And any man who pretends he’s a rape victim as you theorize is either insane or very f(7cked up. There aren’t many of those around, so I’m afraid so your theory is asinine.
I once blurred out a picture of a rape victim and some asshole like you came along and figured out who it was based on that picture. So no, she doesn’t owe you a picture or anything.
I’m getting tired of the feeble hasbara from you & your ilk, so don’t comment further in this thread.
All these guys thinking this accusation was written by a 50 year old man living with his mother tells me they are 20 year olds living with their mothers!
Gadot is your average young Israeli. Fed lies from infancy, it is not strange that she thinks “weareright”. This incident just shows that she also happens to be a nasty person. (You really have to be nasty to pull this off.)
Gal Gadot was 19 at the time, didn’t she do her mandatory service? Would that not have put her in the service at the time?
@ Thomas: Good question. She won Miss Israel a few months earlier & competed in Miss Universe. So I’m guessing they gave her a temporary deferment. I know that she did eventually serve.
Wouldn’t be hilarious if they counted her beauty pageant competitions as part of her (military) service to the nation??
I am heartened by your objective approach to this sensitive topic. Your identification of Hasbara makes me envious, as I have fallen into their convoluted well of misdirection and misinformation, casting pearls before swine, before I gave up…but not before feeling mentally exhausted and soiled by my subsequent profanity. It’s refreshing to see how you addressed the facts while dismissing the misdirection.
Ratner preyed on WOMEN, not “young boys”. There’s enough bullshit accusations of pedophilia being thrown around, no need to add fuel to THAT dumpster fire.
@Jerky: My error. You are right.