BDS Movement Calls on Netflix to Remove Series ‘Sanitizing’ Israeli Occupation

teleSUR | April 3, 2018

Pro-Palestinian groups including the Boycott, Disinvestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement along with the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) have called on Netflix to discontinue the series ‘Fauda’ (Chaos in Arabic) for “sanitizing and normalizing war crimes” and “promoting and justifying these grave human rights violations.”

Originally produced by a network named, Yes, the series depicts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and justifies the crimes against humanity by the Israeli intelligence.

Calling the series, “racist propaganda material for the Israeli occupation army,” the BDS movement wrote a letter to Netflix, the United States-based entertainment company to remove the series.

The series produced by the two former Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) officers is scheduled to be broadcast in May, which also marks the 70th anniversary of the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe) of the Palestinian people.

“The two authors [of the series], who are graduates of one of these teams, without any ambiguity have collaborated with the occupation, colonization and the Apartheid regime,” the letter noted, referring to the series’ creators, Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff’s former service in elite IDF units.

The series has won over 11 awards at the Israeli Academy for Film and Television awards in March, after which it was picked up by Netflix.

Netflix needs to “stop broadcasting and not to produce the third season of the series and remove the previous seasons” as “the series promotes and legitimizes the war crimes committed by death squads disguised as people pretending to be Arabs,” the BDS movement said in a statement.

“Fauda promotes and legitimizes violent acts committed against Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory by Israeli army death squads — the so-called “Mistaravim.” The show’s writers, who were members in these units, have based the series on the war crimes committed by these squads against Palestinians,” PACBI said in a press release.

Adding that if Netflix fails to pay heed to the call of Palestinian social movements, it will face “nonviolent grassroots pressure and possible legal accountability.”