Claire Danes in the streets of Tel Aviv, filming the second season of “Homeland.” If you look closely, you can see a shirt with “Coca-Cola” in Hebrew on the right.
Officials in Lebanon are furious with the creators of “Homeland,” after the first few episodes of the award winning drama, which is based on an Israeli show, portrayed Israel’s northern neighbor as a terrorist-flooded unsafe place.
Lebanese Tourism Minister Fadi Abboud told the Associated Press that people in the country are extremely upset with the show, and mostly about the fact that the show wasn’t even filmed in Lebanon, but in Israel (some scenes even show t-shirts with Coca-Cola in Hebrew and the Israeli soccer team Beitar Jerusalem), “Israel destroyed our country,” Abboud said, “Israel invaded and occupied our country.”
“It was not filmed in Beirut and does not portray the real image of Beirut,” the Tourism Minister said, “It showed Hamra Street with militia roaming in it. This does not reflect reality.”
In addition, the Lebanese are considering taking legal action, “this kind of film damages the image of Lebanon — it is not fair to us and it’s not true, it is not portraying reality,” Abboud added to the Beirut-basedExecutive magazine, “We want to take action, we want to write to the filmmakers and producers and demand an apology. And we are planning to raise a lawsuit against the director and the producer.”
In a completely unrelated event, a car bomb exploded in a Christian neighborhood in Beirut, killing eight people and injuring more than 70.
