Fighting Netflix’s Anti-Israel Blood Libels Inbox bezeqint - Nitsana Darshan Leitner

 

by Nitsana Darshan Leitner

We believe the film and its phony narrative reeks of antisemitism and serves the wider Palestinian goal of labeling Israel as illegitimate from its inception.

 

Dear Friends When the entertainment streaming giant Netflix recently decided to run a Jordanian produced film, Farha, which centers on the Israeli Independence War and paints the real-life events in a wholly false light, we grew concerned. The video tells the fictional story of a young Arab girl who is caught up in the hostilities being perpetrated by the invading Arab armies against the fledging Jewish State. It purports to present the fighting, which the Palestinians label the “Nakba” (or disaster in English) from the perspective of an innocent child who is forced to hide in a basement as she witnesses the “aggressive” and “brutal” Israeli soldiers destroy her village and torture the inhabitants. In the end, the IDF is portrayed as cruelly murdering Palestinian children Shurat HaDin staff meeting with IDF veterans Join Our Fight - Donate Now! We were contacted by a group of Israeli veterans of the 1948 battles who were shocked and outraged that a respectable American entertainment company would agree to air blatantly false blood libels against the young soldiers who defended the country when the neighboring Arab states rejected UN resolutions and set out to destroy it. The veterans claimed the story was a dangerous historical revision which had no basis in fact. It attempts to cast the IDF as war criminals instead of heroic defenders of a small and outgunned population fighting for its survival as it is attacked from all quarters.  We believe the film and its phony narrative reeks of antisemitism and serves the wider Palestinian goal of labeling Israel as illegitimate from its inception. It attempts to rewrite the factual 1948 narrative of the Arabs as murderous aggressors who refused to tolerate a Jewish State of any size with any acceptable borders.  We agreed to represent the veterans, now senior citizens, and sent a letter of protest, condemning Netflix for participating in this shameless bashing of the IDF and its miraculous defense of the Israeli community. We demanded the video be removed from the streaming platform.   We are awaiting Netflix’s response. Yours, War of Independence veterans protest defamatory movie from Jordan Join Our Fight - Donate Now! Five veterans of Israel's War of Independence were astonished and dismayed to hear of the Jordanian film Farha, in which they and their comrades are portrayed as if they were cold-blooded killers of Palestinian children and babies.  The angry veterans warned Netflix: "We are Holocaust survivors who defended our country. Remove the libelous film. The IDF is a moral army. The very notion of harming an Arab child was far from our minds." By Corinne Elbaz-Alush, December 16, 2022 Now joining the furor and protest that surrounds the film Farha, where soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces are portrayed as if they executed Palestinian children and babies, is a group from the generation of 1948, currently in the tenth decade of their lives, who fought in Israel's War of Independence. They are demanding that Netflix immediately stop broadcasting the film.   "We are Holocaust survivors who defended our country. Remove the libelous film," they call. The Israel Law Center has sent on their behalf to the management of Netflix a letter of warning concerning the violation of the Defamation (Prohibition) Law.   Among the group are 96-year-old Oded Negbi, who served in the Givati Brigade and fought many battles in the Negev and Jaffa; 92-year-old Eitan Yavzory of Kibbutz Afikim, who fought in Gush Etzion and in the Negev; 94-year-old Ezra Yachin, who fought in Jerusalem; 92-year-old Lt. Col. (Res.) Ze'ev (Tibi) Ram, a Holocaust survivor who lost his entire family at Auschwitz and enlisted in the Golani Brigade upon the outbreak of the War of Independence; and 91-year-old Prof. Benny Arad, a veteran of the Haganah, who fought in the War of Independence, among other conflicts, and served as an IDF officer for many years. As a physicist, he was one of the founders of the Department of Experimental Physics at the Negev Nuclear Research Center.   Last night, Arad said: "It's an anti-Semitic movie. When I heard about it, I was appalled. At the thought that this movie is being shown all over the world, I was driven to stand up and protest, and I called in my son. He contacted the Israel Law Center.  Personally, I don't watch television. But when we're defamed like this, I can't let it pass. The world doesn't know what the IDF is, what a moral army we have. So they may think that the lies that the movie shows are the actual truth. All we did is defend our country, our nation, and our newborn state."  Fighters of Israel’s fledging defense forces   Join Our Fight - Donate Now! Oded Negbi said: "The life I lived alongside the Arabs was completely different. When I heard about that movie, I shuddered. I went through many hardships. My mother taught me to give to others and help them. Not even the concept of killing children could come out of a home like that. The very notion of harming an Arab child was far from our minds. It's sheer libel."   The film Farha was created by Jordanian director and screenwriter Darin J. Salam and purports to present the "Nakba" from the point of view of an Arab girl, named Farha, who hides in the basement of her home and watches her village's Israeli conquerors abuse her people.   The president of the Israel Law Center, attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, said: "Netflix-Israel must not cooperate with the severe incitement and the campaign of de-legitimation against Israeli soldiers of the War of Independence. In one of the scenes, Israeli soldiers execute a family of refugees, including a baby, with no justification. That misrepresents reality and constitutes a gross violation of the Defamation (Prohibition) Law. We call on Netflix-Israel, in the name of those fighters who defended this country, some of them after surviving the inferno of the Holocaust, to immediately remove the film."

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Nitsana Darshan Leitner

Source: http://www.israellawcenter.org

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