Netflix’s decision to stream a Jordanian film about Israel’s 1948 War of Independence is causing controversy.
Let’s take a look at parts of the story as told by the AFP wire service, an outlet not known for being favorable towards Israel:
An Israeli minister on Wednesday condemned Netflix over a decision to stream a Jordanian film depicting alleged atrocities against Palestinians during the 1948 conflict that coincided with Israel’s creation.
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“Farha” is not the first film to stir controversy over alleged Israeli atrocities in 1948, when more than 760,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes.
Most recently, Israeli director Alon Schwarz faced widespread backlash over his 2022 documentary on an alleged massacre of Palestinians in Tantura, a coastal Mediterranean village in the northwest of what is now Israel.”
Note that AFP has deliberately and quite correctly referred to “alleged Israeli atrocities,” and an “alleged massacre” as is the standard journalistic practice when dealing with events that are disputed or unproven. The most obvious and common example of this practice is the media’s reference to “alleged criminals” or “alleged crimes” if they have not been proven in a credible court of law.
In addition, AFP refers to 1948 “when more than 760,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes” without taking a politicized stance on those events.
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Now contrast AFP’s reportage with that of Bethan McKernan of The Guardian:
The film centres on the experiences of a girl, 14, who is locked in a storage room by her father during the events of the Nakba, the Arabic term for the ethnic cleansing and displacement of about 700,000 Palestinians.
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Portrayals of atrocities committed by Jewish forces in the 1948 war, fictional or otherwise, remain a highly sensitive subject in Israel. A documentary released earlier this year about the massacre of Palestinians in Tantura, a destroyed coastal village in what is now the north of Israel, faced widespread backlash.”
For Bethan McKernan, there is nothing “alleged” about claims made against Israel. They are treated as fact, adopting the Palestinian narrative wholesale. Instead, her story refers to the events of 1948 as the “Nakba,” which takes the highly inflammatory claim of “ethnic cleansing” as read.
As for Tantura, the word “alleged” is conspicuous by its absence in The Guardian. Indeed, historian Professor Benny Morris systematically debunks the documentary about the claimed massacre at Tantura, stating:
There is no written evidence from 1948 – not in Israeli archives, not in United Nations’ archives and not in the archives of the Red Cross or the Western powers – that describes or even mentions a big massacre at Tantura.”
In a separate letter, Morris also states: “There was no Zionist ‘plan’ or blanket policy of evicting the Arab population, or of ‘ethnic cleansing.'” (See a separate article by Morris debunking in more detail claims of a Zionist “master plan” to expel and ethnically cleanse Israel of its Arab population through the War of Independence.)
Not only is The Guardian’s report blatantly biased but Bethan McKernan’s dogged need to adopt the Palestinian narrative of the events of 1948 is simply a failure of the most basic requirements of proper journalism.
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