Netflix removes Palestinian videos whose licenses ran out. So of course it is accused of "supporting genocide!"

CodePink, and others, complained to Netflix over its removing over a dozen "Palestinian Stories" films last week.

Haaretz adds that Israel haters are freaking out:

Social media users are intensifying their calls for Netflix to reinstate the Palestinian films, with some labeling the platform a "genocide supporter" and accusing it of "a blatant attempt to erase the history of Palestine." Alongside canceling subscriptions, many are voicing their outrage and condemning the platform's actions as an erasure of Palestinian narratives.

Anyone who uses Netflix knows that they remove videos all the time. And Netflix responded to the unhinged complaints:

“We launched this licensed collection of films in 2021 for three years. Those licenses have now expired. As always, we continue to invest in a wide variety of quality films and TV shows to meet our members’ needs, and celebrate voices from around the world,” said the platform in response to a query by Deadline.

But the haters are insisting that Netflix spend the money to reinstate the films on their platform, because, um, genocide or occupation or "erasing history" or something.

The thing is, if people were watching the films, Netflix almost certainly would - assuming the distributors wanted them to. Their letting the license expire without renewal tells us that these 19 films were not very popular on the platform. 

The Israel haters want Netflix, a for-profit company, to spend its own money to make them feel better. 

Interestingly, an Arab Haaretz writer/editor reviewed "Palestinian Stories" three years ago when they first were put on the platform. And she didn't like them because every one was simply anti-Israel propaganda which did not explore Palestinian identity outside that perspective.

What’s in these movies and short films? Everything. The occupation, arrests, imprisonment, torture, checkpoints, humiliation, airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, refugeeism, and much, much more.

Each of the eight films or shorts I watched is built on the same narrative of victimhood, with identical pacing, tone and cinematic language, as if they were all cloned.

...The occupier and their actions were the focal point in all of the films I watched. They all left the consequences of the occupation and the actions of the occupier that worked their way into the Palestinian psyche outside of the cinematic and political discourse. This cinema does not engage in a “Palestinianism” that was forged because of the occupation; it engages in a narrative tussle with the Israeli narrative.

....They are blindly faithful to the national narrative and, accordingly, offer up the clichéd, superficial content that places the Israeli occupier not only at the heart of the Palestinian narrative, but also exclusively at the heart of the Palestinian cinematic oeuvre.

If this is true, the world didn't lose much with Netflix removing the films. They were simply anti-Israel propaganda, not works of art exploring humanity through a Palestinian prism.

Which would explain the crazed reactions by the usual suspects: CodePink, CAIR, and so on.

Or maybe, just maybe,  Palestinian identity really doesn't exist outside demonizing Israel? 

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