Israeli and Jewish groups are protesting Netflix’s showing of a film called Farha, which slanders Israel:
Last week, a group of activists from World Herut, one of the most active Zionist movements worldwide, protested at the Netflix offices in London, demanding they cancel the screening of the Anti-Israel propaganda film “Farha.” The fictional movie slanders Israel and the IDF, in a way considered likely to raise the already high levels of Antisemitism in Jewish communities around the world, including the United States and Canada.
Similar actions are planned to take place in front of Netflix offices in other major cities, including New York and Los Angeles, demanding that they review and reconsider streaming the film.
A good question:
Damon Lenszner, Executive Director of Herut United Kingdom asked, “Where is the film on how Arabs massacred Jews in 1948?” On Netflix Jews massacre Arabs, in real life Arabs massacre Jews.”
That sums it up pretty well. But in the press, invincible ignorance prevails. Thus, Time promotes Farha:
Set in an unnamed Palestinian village, Farha tells the true story of a 14-year-old girl during the creation of Israel in 1948—an event Palestinians call the Nakba, or “catastrophe”—in which more than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes.
Let’s pause there. Is the “true story” actually true? The film’s director says that the protagonist in the film grew up and told her story to the director’s mother, who passed it on to her. Not exactly a well-documented event. But what is the story?
The movie’s namesake character, Farha, is a boisterous girl who wants to enroll in school despite traditional gender norms.
Let’s glide swiftly over that one!
But when nascent Israeli forces overrun her village, Farha’s father locks her in a pantry to keep her safe. There, she witnesses the murder of a Palestinian family and their newborn baby through a small opening in the wall.
The film’s director elaborates:
There was a girl named Radieh who lived in Palestine in 1948, and she was locked in a room by her father to protect her from Israel’s invasion at that time.
Time is fully on board with this narrative. But in fact, what happened in 1948 was not an “invasion” (of what?) by Israel. Rather, immediately upon Israel’s UN-sanctioned declaration of independence, the armies of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, and Egypt invaded Israel from the North, East and South. Their objective was to massacre the Jews, and the “Nakba” consists of the fact that, unexpectedly and against all odds, they failed to do so.
But you won’t get any understanding of this history from the film Farha or from Time’s biased account. If you didn’t know better, you would think that in 1948, for no apparent reason, Israel “invaded”…what?…and wantonly slaughtered Arabs. This is legend, not fact. But liberal news sources like Time have absorbed the lesson of Liberty Valance: when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
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