Israel’s Mission to the United Nations has lodged a complaint with the UN General Assembly president for allowing the US premiere of a controversial film on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict inside the UN headquarters in New York. A red-carpet showing of the movie ‘Miral’ by award winning American-Jewish director Julian Schnabel is to be held at the General Assembly Hall on Monday. The film is based on an autobiographical novel by Palestinian journalist Rula Jebreal that traces the Arab-Israeli conflict after 1948 from a Palestinian perspective. The lead role is played by Indian actress Freida Pinto, who became famous with the Oscar-winning movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.
"This is clearly a politicized decision of the UN, one that shows poor judgment and a lack of even-handedness," Israel's mission to the UN said in a statement which called on General Assembly president Joseph Deiss of Switzerland not to host the event in the headquarters. General Assembly spokesman Jean-Victor Nkolo denied there was any "political link" to the film, which is a French, Israeli, Italian, Indian co-production. "It is just a venue. Several films have been shown at the UN," he said. However, Haim Waxman, Israel's deputy ambassador, said: "We are not aware of any other films with such contentious political content that have received this kind of endorsement from the president of the General Assembly."