Hecht

“Millions are to be grabbed out here,” Herman J. Mankiewicz wrote Ben Hecht in 1926, “and your only competition is idiots.”

“Older and more established monuments tend to be popular in California — while new monuments are often not as established with a wide constituency, and therefore are more vulnerable politically,” Hecht said in an email.

But the Israeli government denies that it plans to build settlements in Gaza once the war ends, and Dr Hecht dismissed such suggestions as nothing more than a "dream" for some ultranationalist ministers.

“I just feel a very heavy presence being here,” Hecht said.

The Hecht Museum said the incident happened a few days ago when the boy, aged about four or five, was visiting the museum.