"Netflix Wiped Most of Its “Palestinian Stories” Collection — and Erased the Whole Thing in Israel"

In 2021, Netflix moved to create a new movie collection for its viewers.

“Netflix will launch the Palestinian Stories collection, showcasing films from some of the Arab world’s finest filmmakers,” said an announcement of the new grouping. “[T]he collection is a tribute to the creativity and passion of the Arab film industry as Netflix continues to invest in stories from the Arab world.”

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Now, however, following a purge of at least 24 films from Netflix’s library, the landing page for the collection contains just a single film for streamers in the United States ...

Accessing the page from an Israeli IP address, not only are the 24 films gone, but “Palestinian Stories” doesn’t exist at all: The URL for the landing page instead yields to 404 error page saying the site can’t be found. The Israeli page reportedly used to include 28 movies.

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The entertainment giant offered scant details as to why exactly two dozen Palestinian films were wiped out in a matter of weeks. In response to an inquiry from The Intercept, Netflix spokesperson Rachel Racusen said, “As part of the licensing deal for these films, the licensing period will conclude in October 2024 which is why these films will no longer be available on service.” ...

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....In the sample of countries whose IP addresses were used by The Intercept to access Netflix, at least some, if not all, of the titles had been wiped across the globe.

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