Even at East Beirut's upscale Empire theater, where a more Westernized crowd of mostly Christian viewers is flocking to see the film, many moviegoers are coming away annoyed. But it's an insult to the American people, the idea that the salvation of America is a Jew, and the traitor to America is a white man. Gone is the scene in which Goldblum's on-screen father, Judd Hirsch, dons a skullcap and leads a group of White House aides and soldiers in a Hebrew prayer for mercy. Gone, too, is the fleeting footage of Israeli troops working side by side with Arabs in a desert redoubt. They had to cut all the Jewish pictures.
Film censorship is nothing new in Lebanon, nor is it limited to things Jewish.
Even on-screen kisses that last too long are sometimes known to disappear.