Hezbollah Criticizes Lebanon For Not Banning Spielberg Film
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hezbollah criticized the Lebanese government on Friday for allowing cinemas to screen Steven Spielberg’s film “The Post” despite calls for a ban because of the director’s links to Israel.
The movie premiered in Beirut this week after Lebanon’s interior minister ruled against any ban.
Activists in Lebanon had campaigned against the film because Spielberg gave funds to Israel during its 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The two countries are officially enemy states.
“We reject this decision. We consider it a mistake,” said Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Iranian-backed political and military movement.
“This man announced his support for the Israeli aggression against Lebanon,” he said in an address. “He paid Israel from his own money…to kill your children and destroy your houses.”
A month-long conflict in 2006 killed about 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them troops. There has been no major confrontation between the two sides since
“The Post” dramatizes the 1971 battle by American newspapers to publish leaked documents, known as the Pentagon Papers, about the U.S. government’s role in the Vietnam War.
Lebanon — widely seen as a relative bastion of free speech in the Arab world — banned the film “Wonder Woman” last year over the starring role of the Israeli actress Gal Gadot.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!