Oscar winning Hollywood helmer Steven Spielberg’s films were banned by the Arab League, whose members include Pakistan among others, after he made a $1 million donation to Israel, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.
The donation was made during the 2006 conflict between Israel and Lebanon and during a meeting of the Arab League in April 2007, representatives from 14 member countries voted to pass the ban, according to the leaked cable posted in the Guardian.
Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen had agreed to ban all Spielberg’s works.
Malaysia, Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia were also present at the meeting and voted in favour of the boycott.
The only Arab states which did not attend the meeting were those who have signed separate peace accords with Israel, namely, Egypt, which also has a thriving film industry and holds the annual Cairo film festival, Mauritania and Jordan. Djibouti and Somalia were not present at the meeting either.
Reacting to the news, Marvin Levy, spokesman for Steven Spielberg, said, “While we can’t comment on a leaked cable, we know that the films and DVDs have been sold globally in the normal distribution through all this time.”
Spielberg, who is Jewish, set up the Righteous Persons Foundation in 1994. Using his personal profits from the Oscar winning film Schindler’s List and later Munich, the foundation is dedicated to helping create a strong Jewish community in the United States. —PTI