The Post : Stephen Spielberg's film banned in Lebanon

The Post, starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, recounts how US newspapers exposed a Vietnam cover-up

The Post has been refused a release in Lebanon because it breaches a boycott Israel directive presently maintained by the Lebanese government.  Ironically, the country remains technically at war with its southern neighbour.

The film has been tipped for Oscars.  It stars Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks and is based on how The Washington Post and The New York Times exposed a government cover-up surrounding the Vietnam War in the 1970s.

Last year Lebanon banned Wonder Woman, simply because its star, Gal Gadot, served in the Israeli military, as is required of all citizens.  However, it surprisingly cleared Spielberg’s The BFG and Bridge of Spies.

This is not the first time that a film by Mr Spielberg, who is Jewish, has been banned in Arab and Muslim countries.  Censorship of his work goes back to Schindler’s List, his Oscar-winning film that detailed the story of Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who saved the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust.