Apple TV accused of whitewashing genocide after announcing new Israeli series
Apple has come under fire after its streaming service started advertising for a new Israeli thriller, with people accusing the tech giant of normalising Israel and its army amid its ongoing genocide in Gaza and wars in the Mena region.
The trailer for Unconditional, an eight-part drama, was released on Wednesday. It depicts Gali (Talia Lynne Ronn), a 23-year-old dressed in military uniform in the first shot, as being arrested in Moscow on drug-smuggling charges, and her mother Orna (Liraz Chamami), who tries to unravel what authorities allege her daughter is really mixed up in - "something critical for Israeli National Security", as one character tells Orna on screen.
"So, two and a half years into an ongoing genocide carried out by Israel, Apple TV is releasing a show depicting an Israeli soldier (who, for some reason, is wearing a uniform in a Russian airport) as a victim," one social media user said on X.
"The fucking audacity."
That framing, an Israeli soldier cast as a figure for sympathy, quickly became the spine of the criticism.
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Many also characterised the series as an attempt to use entertainment to sanitise the image of Israel during what the United Nations and top international legal and genocide experts have all concluded constitutes a genocide in Gaza. Over 72,000 people have been killed in the enclave since October 2023.
“Rome deaf (sic) and reprehensible genocide washing. SHAME ON YOU!!” wrote one person in response to the announcement, while another dismissed it outright: “ Save your Zionist propaganda. We say no thanks.”
Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa also framed the series as part of a broader effort to shape the public's views about Israel in the wake of global outcry against its violence: "This series is nothing more than a manipulation of public imagination and collective conscience in the wake of nearly three years of all of us seeing Israelis commit unspeakable carnage," she wrote.
"They are working to literally engineer your thoughts in direct opposition to what you've seen in real life with your own eyes".
Media critic Sana Saeed asked why Apple would invest in such a show at a time when Israel has largely become a "taboo" for young Americans.
"To be investing in anything Israeli - in any industry where it’s the young consumer you need to condition as the long term, loyal and committed consumer - is an explicit and political choice not rooted in market research and brand growth, but in something transparently insidious," she wrote.
In addition to the genocide in Gaza, the US-Israeli war on Iran has killed at least 3,600 Iranians since 28 February, according to the US-based rights group HRANA. Another 2,100 Lebanese have been killed in roughly the same period.
'Whoever messes with us gets tear-gassed'
Within hours of the trailer's release, one social media user shared a 2015 Instagram post by Ronn captioned: "Whoever messes with us gets tear-gassed," showing the actor dressed in matching navy jackets and khakis with a group of armed women. She has a few other group photographs from 2015 during what appears to be her service in the Israeli army.
The user described Ronn as "the Israeli actress playing an IDF terrorist in the new Apple TV series" who "was of course an IDF terrorist in real life as well".
Middle East Eye has reached out to Ronn and Apple TV for comment.
Others expressed scepticism that Apple TV highlighted that Unconditional was created by the producers of Homeland, a Showtime drama based on an Israeli television series that aired for eight seasons from 2011 to 2020.
Throughout its run, it was heavily criticised for its depiction of Muslims and the Middle East and faced persistent accusations of Islamophobia.
“I remember in the Homeland series they showed Islamabad as some slum city when in reality it is one of the most beautiful capitals on earth,” one person wrote.
“Homeland once depicted Hamra Street in Beirut as some back alley shithole and funny enough they did the filming for that in Tel Aviv. Unsurprising that the writers are making Israeli slop now,” said another.
In 2012, Lebanese Tourism Minister Faddy Abboud also threatened to sue the makers of Homeland over the depiction of Beirut in some episodes.
Landing image: Apple TV+ logo (Patrick T Fallon / AFP)
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