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NETFLIX REMOVES PALESTINIAN STORIES FROM ITS LIBRARY  
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Samer Badawi
November 13, 2024
The Progressive
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_ The streaming giant’s move has sparked criticism from
entertainment workers and activists. _

, The Progressive

 

In October, streaming giant Netflix quietly announced that it would be
removing a category of films on the platform known as “Palestinian
Stories,” a curated collection that included award-winning films
like Annemarie Jacir’s _Salt of this Sea_ and Golden Globe-winning
director Hany Abu-Assad’s film _Omar_, which took the Jury Prize at
the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. As of this writing, the
collection’s landing page
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Netflix website but is empty. 

“Instead of deleting Palestinian content, Netflix should be
promoting Palestinian stories,” Sunjeev Bery, executive director of
the nonprofit organization Freedom Forward, said in an email to _The
Progressive_. Bery’s organization was one of more than three dozen
signatories on an October 25 letter
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Netflix executives that said the platform’s move “will further
marginalize Palestinian voices at a time when over two million
Palestinians in Gaza are being subjected to genocide by the Israeli
military.” 

The campaign went viral, with some 1.4 million people viewing
Bery’s post
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listed the deleted films. Among the groups amplifying the post was
SAG-AFTRA & Sister Guild Members for Ceasefire, whose members
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several prominent actors such as Mark Ruffalo and Susan Sarandon. In
March, the group issued an open letter to Screen Actors Guild -
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), the
entertainment industry’s leading guild, saying that its members
could not “stand idly by as our industry refuses to tell the story
of Palestinian humanity.”  

Lizbeth McManus, an organizer with SAG-AFTRA & Sister Guild Members
for Ceasefire in the Washington, D.C., area, tells _The
Progressive _that, despite including broadcast journalists among its
members, the guild has yet to condemn Israel’s killing of reporters
and other media professionals in Gaza. In October, the watchdog
organization Reporters Without Borders said
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than a hundred Palestinian journalists had been killed in the
preceding year. Israel has also barred entry to the besieged strip by
international media organizations, leading to a near-total media
blackout
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Despite the international outcry over its removal of Palestinian
films, Netflix took weeks to respond to critics, who contend that the
sudden removal of so many titles at once was likely the result of a
pressure campaign. Netflix asserts
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the purge resulted from the end of a three-year licensing contract
signed in 2021. One industry insider, who had helped distribute a
Palestinian film previously featured on the platform, says the chances
that all of the films’ licensing agreements had expired at once were
slim to none. The source adds that filmmakers are typically
compensated in a single lump sum when Netflix purchases a title, not
by individual views. That means the streaming service has no financial
incentive to take down a film if it is not being viewed by many. 

If anything, given Israel’s unrelenting onslaught—which has so
far killed
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than 40,000 people—it seems plausible that the
platform’s famously secret algorithm
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be registering growing interest in Palestinian stories. That the
films’ removal coincided with the headlines out of Gaza has led
activists to speculate
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the move was a political, rather than a business, choice. Netflix
shares scant information on individual titles’ play rate, typically
by featuring its top films or shows in “most popular” lists
organized by category. Still, with Gaza continuing to command
headlines in the United States and abroad, it’s little wonder that
more than 18,000 people have already signed a petition
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reinstate the deleted films. 

The petition, launched by CODEPINK, says the Netflix move is part of a
“systemic erasure of Palestinian voices” that “prevents broader
audiences from understanding the reality of Israel’s brutal
occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and now, genocide of
Palestinians.” 

“With the ongoing occupation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide of the
Palestinian people, it’s more important than ever to bring their
stories to the world,” McManus said
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released by Freedom Forward. “As actors, artists, and media
professionals, we hold firm in our solidarity with the people of
Palestine, and condemn the systemic suppression of Palestinian
voices.” 

Netflix did not respond to a request for comment from _The
Progressive_. 

Jon Rainwater, executive director of Peace Action, adds that
Netflix’s decision “denies Americans access to critical
information and vitally important stories that can inform U.S.
perspectives about a war that the U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill
for.” Last month, Brown University’s Costs of War
project estimated
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U.S. military aid to Israel in the past year stood at at least $17.9
billion, a figure that excludes spending on American troops and other
assets sent to the Middle East to back Israel’s campaign.  

_[xxxxxx MODERATOR- ALSO OF INTEREST: _

_NO OTHER LAND
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BY _JENNIFER LENOW
[[link removed]]._ JACOBIN. AN
AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THE DISPOSSESSION OF PALESTINIANS IN
THE WEST BANK, STILL HASN’T FOUND A DISTRIBUTOR IN THE US. NOVEMBER
26,2024]_

_SAMER BADAWI is a Palestinian-American writer based in Akron, Ohio
and a contributor to +972 Magazine._

_A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good! Since
1909, THE PROGRESSIVE magazine has aimed to amplify voices of
dissent and voices under-represented in the mainstream, with a goal
of championing grassroots progressive politics._

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