A five-star hotel in Berlin is dismissing claims of anti-Israel bias by French Jewish filmmaker Claude Lanzmann. The renowned director of the Holocaust documentary "Shoah" was quoted in a German newspaper Thursday as saying that the Kempinski Hotel Bristol intentionally left Israel off a list of international dialing codes. Lanzmann told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that after he noticed that Israel did not appear on the hotel's list of international dialing codes, a hotel employee informed him the omission had been requested by Arab guests. Hotel director Birgitt Ullerich denied there were any such instructions. She told The Associated Press that only 34 countries were on the list and Israel's absence "was simply an oversight." The hotel is part of the Kempinski group, which has its roots in a restaurant founded by German Jewish businessman Berthold Kempinski. Berlin Interior Minister Frank Henkel urged the hotel to investigate Lanzmann's allegation.
