Lebanon's intelligence agency has banned Steven Spielberg's latest film, political thriller "The Post", and Australian drama "Jungle" to comply with a boycott of Israel, an official told AFP yesterday. "Screening of the film 'The Post' has been banned," said the official from Lebanon's General Security authority, speaking on condition of anonymity. In addition to controlling borders, Lebanon's General Security is responsible for censorship of films, plays, and books. Spielberg "is blacklisted by the Arab League's boycott office, which Lebanon complies with", the official explained.

The Hollywood giant was blacklisted by the Cairo-based pan-Arab body after he donated $1 million to Israel during the 2006 war between the Jewish state

and Lebanon. The two countries are still officially at war. "The Post" is an acclaimed production starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks on the behind-the-scenes story of the 1971 publication by The Washington Post of the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the lies behind US involvement in the Vietnam War. The other film that got the censorship axe was "Jungle", a survival drama about Israeli adventurer Yossi Ghinsberg, who got lost in an uncharted part of the Bolivian Amazon in 1981.

The film, starring Daniel Radcliffe, had been screening for two weeks in Lebanon but is now being pulled, the same official told AFP, explaining that the decision followed a number of complaints. He did not specify their origin but a few days earlier the Lebanese branch of the Campaign to Boycott the Supporters of Israel issued a statement against "Jungle" because its main character is an Israeli, as is one of its producers.-AFP