BICOM

Israel on Wednesday denied any connection to an anti-Islamic film that was reportedly produced by a US national with Israeli nationality, which sparked attacks on the US missions in Egypt and Libya.

‘It is nothing to do with us, Israel is not connected in any way to this story,’ foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told AFP, condemning the amateurish film as ‘intolerable intolerance.’

‘If he is a citizen (of Israel), so what? We’re not responsible,’ Palmor said of the film that the Wall Street Journal said was produced by Israeli-American Sam Bacile.

After a mob attacked on the US compound in Benghazi, AP reported an interview with Bacile who said he was in hiding. Bacile told AP he was an Israeli-born, 56-year-old, Jewish writer and director. But a Christian activist involved with the film, Steve Klein, said Wednesday that Bacile was a pseudonym, he was not Jewish or Israeli, and a group of Coptic Christian had collaborated on the film. Officials in Israel also said there was no record of Bacile as an Israeli citizen.

‘He didn’t do it for us, in coordination with us or through any sort of channel connected to Israeli institutions. He’s a complete loose cannon, and an unspeakable idiot,’ Palmor added.

Entitled ‘Innocence of Muslims,’ the low-budget movie, which features actors with strong American accents, portrays Muslims as immoral and gratuitously violent. A purported portrayal of the life of the Prophet Mohammed, it touches on themes of pedophilia and homosexuality, and sparked protests in Egypt and violence in Libya that killed US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American officials.