NAKBA FILM STREAMS ON NETFLIX DESPITE ISRAELI THREATS

Fri 02 December 2022: 

A Jordanian film depicting the ethnic cleansing of Palestine during the 1948 Nakba, when Zionist forces declared the creation of the State of Israel, has begun airing on Netflix despite attacks from Israeli politicians.

Farha is directed by the Jordanian filmmaker Darin J Sallam, and is a rare portrayal on a Western entertainment platform of the events of the Nakba, when Zionist military forces expelled at least 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and lands and captured 78 percent of historic Palestine.

Netflix has stuck by its decision to carry the film on its streaming platform, where it became available to view on Thursday.

That is despite an Israeli campaign to stop it from appearing on Netflix, with Avigdor Lieberman, a right-winger who is the outgoing Israeli finance minister, suggesting that state funding should be withdrawn from a theatre in Jaffa that plans to show the film.

Jaffa, or Yafa as it is known in Arabic, was one of the biggest cities in historic Palestine until most of its 120,000 residents were expelled during the Nakba, or “catastrophe” in Arabic. A third of the city remains Palestinian today.

Academics and human rights organisations have extensively documented the events of the Nakba and the atrocities committed against Palestinians, and the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on Wednesday to officially recognise Nakba Day.

“I call on the theatre’s management to change their decision to screen the film,” the minister added.

Sallam and the film’s producers, Deema Azar and Ayah Jardaneh, released a statement following the ministers’ attack on their film, criticising what they called “the accusations to discredit Farha”.

“The film’s writer/director, Darin J. Sallam, had an urge to tellt his humane and personal story that she carried with her since her childhood and to share it with the world,” the statement said.