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Netflix faces\u00a0calls for a boycott<\/a>\u00a0after it removed its \u201cPalestinian Stories<\/a>\u201d collection this October. This includes approximately 24 films.<\/p>\n Netflix cited\u00a0the expiration of three-year licences as the reason for pulling the films<\/a>\u00a0from the collection.<\/p>\n Nonetheless,\u00a0some viewers were outraged<\/a>\u00a0and almost 12,000 people signed\u00a0a CodePink petition<\/a>\u00a0calling on Netflix to reinstate the films.<\/p>\n Suppression in the time of genocide As such, in the past 400+ days, Israel has intensified its systematic silencing and erasure of Palestinian narratives.<\/p>\n One hundred thirty-seven journalists and media workers have been killed across the occupied Palestinian Territories and Lebanon since Israel declared war on Hamas following its Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on Oct. 7, 2023. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, there are almost no professional journalists left in northern Gaza to document Israel\u2019s ethnic cleansing. It has been the deadliest period for journalists in the world since CPJ began collecting data in 1992.<\/p>\n Israel has also targeted, detained, tortured, raped and killed academics, students, health-care workers and cultural workers; many who have shared eyewitness accounts and narrated their stories of genocide on social media platforms.<\/p>\n Israel has censored and silenced Palestinian narratives through media manipulation, digital censorship and the destruction of journalistic infrastructure. Palestinian cultural and academic institutions, cultural heritage and archives have also been bombed and destroyed in Gaza, termed scholasticide. The aim of this destruction is to obliterate historical memory, and suppress documentation of atrocities.<\/p>\n The genocide and scholasticide will prevent the Palestinian people\u2019s ability to fully preserve centuries of history, knowledge, culture and archives.<\/p>\n Netflix\u2019s decision to remove the Palestinian Stories collection and not renew the licences of the films during this time makes it complicit in the erasure of Palestinian culture.<\/p>\n At a time when Palestinians are facing what scholars,\u00a0United Nations experts<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Amnesty International<\/a>\u00a0are calling a\u00a0genocide<\/a>, Netflix\u2019s move could be seen as a silencing of Palestinian narratives.<\/p>\n The disappearance of these films from Netflix in this moment has deeper implications. The removal of almost all films in this category represents a significant act of cultural erasure and\u00a0anti-Palestinian racism<\/a>.<\/p>\n There is a long history of the erasure of Palestine.<\/p>\n Since the\u00a0Nakba of 1948<\/a>,\u00a0Zionist militias<\/a>\u00a0have systematically\u00a0ethnically cleansed<\/a>\u00a0Palestinians and destroyed hundreds of cities, towns and villages, while also\u00a0targeting Palestinian culture.<\/a><\/p>\n Palestinian visual archives and books were\u00a0looted, stolen and hidden away<\/a>\u00a0in Israeli-controlled state archives, classified and often kept under restricted access. This targeting of visual culture is not incidental. It is a calculated act of cultural erasure aimed at severing the connection between a people, their land and history.<\/p>\n Another notable instance of cultural erasure includes the thefts of the Palestinian Liberation Organization\u2019s (PLO)\u00a0visual archives and cinematic materials<\/a>. In 1982, the PLO\u00a0Arts and Culture Section<\/a>, Research Centre and other PLO offices were looted during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The Palestinian Cinema Institutions film archives\u00a0were moved during the invasion and later disappeared<\/a>. Theft and\u00a0looting also occured<\/a>\u00a0during the\u00a0Second Intifada<\/a>\u00a0in the early 2000s and\u00a0recurrent bombardments of Gaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n This plundering of Palestinian cultural institutions, archives and libraries resulted in the loss of invaluable cultural materials, including visual archives.<\/p>\n To maintain\u00a0Zionist colonial mythologies<\/a>\u00a0about the establishment of Israel, the state systematically stole, destroyed and holds captive Palestinian films and other historical and cultural materials.<\/p>\n By the mid-20th century, Palestinian cinema emerged as a vital component of global Third Worldism, a unifying global ideology and philosophy of anticolonial solidarity and liberation.<\/p>\n Palestinian cinema aligned with revolutionary\u00a0filmmakers<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0cinema groups<\/a>\u00a0in Asia, Africa and Latin America, all seeking to reclaim their histories, culture and identity in the face of imperial domination.<\/p>\n This photo is taken by Hani Jawharieh, a Palestinian filmmaker who was killed in 1976 while filming in the Aintoura Mountains of Lebanon. CC BY<\/p><\/div>\n The PLO\u2019s revolutionary\u00a0films<\/a>\u00a0of the 1960s and 1970s were driven by the national liberation struggle and the desire to document the\u00a0Palestinian revolution<\/a>. Created as part of a broader campaign against colonialism and imperialism, PLO filmmakers aimed to rally international solidarity for the Palestinian cause through\u00a0Afro-Asian<\/a>,\u00a0Tricontinental<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0socialist<\/a>\u00a0cultural networks.<\/p>\n Censorship became one of the primary mechanisms for repressing cultural production in the Third World.\u00a0Colonial and imperial powers, as well as allied governments, banned films<\/a>, books, periodicals, newspapers and art that conveyed anti-colonial and anti-imperialist sentiments. Their films and cultural works were denied distribution in western and local markets.<\/p>\n Settler colonial states such as Israel<\/a>\u00a0rely on the destruction and suppression of the colonized narratives to\u00a0erase historical and cultural connections to land<\/a>. By doing so, they undermine Indigenous Palestinian claims to sovereignty and self-determination.<\/p>\n Many Palestinian cultural workers including writers, poets and filmmakers were persecuted,\u00a0imprisoned<\/a>,\u00a0exiled<\/a>,\u00a0assassinated<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0killed<\/a>.<\/p>\n In an\u00a0essay about the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the Sabra and Shatila massacres<\/a>, the late Palestinian American literature professor, Edward Said, explained how the West systematically denies Palestinians the agency to tell their own stories. He said the West\u2019s biased coverage and suppression of Palestinian narratives distorts the region\u2019s history and justifies Israeli aggression. For a more truthful understanding of history, Palestinians needed the right \u201cto narrate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Despite the denial to narrate, generations of Palestinian filmmakers, including Elia Suleiman, Michel Khleifi, Mai Masri, Annemarie Jacir and many others, have contributed to and evolved this cinematic tradition of resistance.<\/p>\n Their films centre the lived experiences of Palestinians under settler colonialism,\u00a0occupation<\/a>,\u00a0apartheid<\/a>\u00a0and exile.<\/p>\n By capturing the Palestinian struggle, freedom dreams, joy, hopes and humour, they help to humanize a population.
\nIn a time of genocide, Palestinian stories, films, cultural production, media and visual culture transcend being mere cultural artifacts. They are tools of defiance, sumud (steadfastness), historical memory, documentation and preservation against erasure. They assert the fundamental right to Palestinian liberation and the right to narrate and exist even while being annihilated.<\/p>\nCultural erasure<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Palestinian liberation cinema<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Censorship<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Resistance<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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