❌ In 2022, Marvel introduced its Israeli ‘superhero’ character named Sabra for the movie Captain America: Brave New World (2025) to be portrayed by Israeli actress Shira Haas. Despite being medically exempt, Haas volunteered to serve in the Israeli military. More recently, she signed a ‘both sides’ statement in October 2023 focused around Israeli hostages, whilst ignoring the onslaught by the IOF on Gaza.
As for the character Sabra, an unashamed glorification of Mossad, she describes herself in the comics as the "superheroine of the state of Israel” who is “determined to preserve her homeland”.
There is also a narrative wherein the Hulk has to convince Sabra that an Arab (Palestinian) child who has been killed is innocent and has nothing to do with the ‘conflict’. This is an attempt to portray the Israeli occupation as simply a religious feud between both sides, and to portray Sabra as a human ‘capable of caring’ despite it taking a “monster to awaken her own sense of humanity”.
The name of the character is also not to be overlooked, as it bears reference to the Sabra and Shatila massacre of 1982 wherein 1,300 and 3,500 Palestinians and Lebanese were killed by Israel and its right-wing Lebanese allies in the refugee camps in Beirut.
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