Military Audit: Netflix

Direct Defence Contracting & Procurement

No public evidence identified of any contract, tender, framework agreement, or memorandum of understanding between Netflix and Israel’s Ministry of Defense (IMOD), the IDF, the Israel Prison Service, Israel Border Police, or any other Israeli state security body. Netflix does not appear in Israel’s SIBAT Defense and HLS Industries Directory, the state’s official export-promotion catalogue of defence and homeland-security suppliers, based on a direct search of the directory ¹. No public evidence identified of press releases, official announcements, or government notifications describing defence cooperation between Netflix and Israeli defence entities.

Dual-Use Products & Tactical Variants

Netflix operates as a content-streaming service with no hardware product line; No public evidence identified of a ruggedised, mil-spec, or tactical variant of any Netflix product or service. No public evidence identified of export-licence applications, end-user certificates, or export-control reviews concerning Netflix sales to Israeli defence or security end-users.

Heavy Machinery, Construction & Infrastructure

No public evidence identified of Netflix-owned or Netflix-branded equipment, vehicles, or machinery documented in construction, demolition, or barrier/military-installation activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. No public evidence identified of construction or engineering contracts for checkpoints, detention facilities, military bases, the separation barrier, or settlement infrastructure involving Netflix.

Supply Chain Integration with Defence Primes

No public evidence identified of a supply relationship - components, sub-systems, raw materials, or manufacturing services - between Netflix and Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, or IMI Systems/Elbit Land. No public evidence identified of joint development, co-production, or technology-transfer programmes between Netflix and any Israeli defence firm. Netflix is absent from PAX’s June 2024 inventory of companies arming Israel and their financiers, a report that names arms producers including Boeing, General Dynamics, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, RTX, and Rolls-Royce, and financiers including BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and UBS ².

The one documented commercial nexus identified in a Tier-1 NGO settlement-monitoring database is indirect: Who Profits’ company profile for Partner Communications (formerly Orange), Netflix’s Israeli telecommunications and set-top-box distribution partner, lists Netflix by name in its “Partners” field alongside Apple and Juniper Networks ³. Netflix and Partner Communications announced a distribution collaboration for the Israeli market in May 2017 ⁴. Who Profits and +972 Magazine separately document Partner Communications as maintaining cellular infrastructure on land leased from Israeli settlement councils and providing service that benefits West Bank settlements ⁵⁶. No public evidence identified that Netflix itself operates, funds, or maintains settlement infrastructure beyond this indirect commercial partnership.

Logistical Sustainment & Base Services

No public evidence identified of Netflix service contracts - catering, transport, fuel, waste management, facilities management, or telecommunications - supplied to IDF bases, training facilities, or detention centres in the West Bank, Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, the Negev, or elsewhere. No public evidence identified of shipping, freight-forwarding, or port-handling contracts by Netflix servicing Israeli military cargo or arms shipments; this category is not applicable to Netflix’s business model as a content-streaming provider.

Munitions, Weapons Systems & Strategic Platforms

No public evidence identified of any role by Netflix as manufacturer, prime contractor, or sub-system supplier for small arms, armoured vehicles, drones, naval vessels, missile-defence systems such as Iron Dome, David’s Sling, or Arrow, fighter aircraft, or munitions and precursor materials; this category is inapplicable to Netflix’s core business as a media and entertainment company, and no anomalous evidence was found suggesting otherwise.

Export Licensing, Regulatory & Legal History

No public evidence identified of export-licence grants, denials, suspensions, or revocations concerning Netflix and Israeli military or security end-users in any jurisdiction. No public evidence identified of arms-embargo or sanctions-enforcement actions involving Netflix and Israel. No public evidence identified of court proceedings or judicial reviews regarding a Netflix–Israel defence-supply relationship. A separate and unrelated 2024 legal complaint filed in Germany targets Axel Springer - whose CEO Mathias Döpfner sits on Netflix’s board - over its Yad2 subsidiary’s promotion of West Bank settlement real-estate listings; Axel Springer, not Netflix, is the named respondent, and the matter concerns classifieds/real-estate rather than defence supply ⁷. Netflix’s FY2024 Form 10-K could not be independently reviewed this session for Israel-specific risk-factor or subsidiary disclosures ⁸. Netflix, alongside Apple and Disney+, was named in reporting on an Israeli legislative proposal that would have required streaming platforms to fund local content production; the plan was reportedly scrapped following a trade-related demand linked to the Trump administration ⁹.

Civil Society Scrutiny & Documented Investigations

In October 2024 Netflix removed at least 19 to roughly 24-25 Palestinian-related titles from its global library, three years after a 2021 licensing deal with Dubai-based Front Row Filmed Entertainment; Netflix attributed the removals to licence expiry ^10111213. A coalition of more than 30 organisations, led by Freedom Forward and including CODEPINK, sent an open letter to Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters and executive chairman Reed Hastings on 24-25 October 2024 demanding reinstatement of the films ¹³. An industry distributor source quoted in coverage called the simultaneous expiry of all licences implausible ¹⁰. Business & Human Rights Resource Centre tracked the episode as Netflix facing calls to reinstate purged Palestinian films and maintains an ongoing company profile page for Netflix ¹⁴¹⁵.

Netflix’s global 2022 release of the Jordanian Oscar-entry film Farha, depicting killings by soldiers during the 1948 Nakba, triggered an Israeli government-linked boycott campaign that included criticism from then-Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman, and separate criticism from some Arab commentators when Netflix was seen as subsequently promoting Israeli-produced content ¹⁶¹⁷.

Netflix’s Israeli-produced series Fauda, distributed via an overall deal with Faraway Road Productions - founded by IDF Special Forces veterans Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff and re-upped with Netflix in August 2021 ¹⁸ - received production assistance from the IDF, including use of helicopters and the Tze’elim urban-warfare training base to simulate Gaza combat conditions, and the IDF’s Kfir Brigade later used episodes of the show as an Arabic-language training aid for roughly 50 soldiers ¹⁹. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos publicly referenced the 7 October 2023 attack and paid tribute to a Netflix-affiliated sound technician killed in it ²⁰.

Netflix’s only documented on-record response to Israel/Palestine content criticism is a spokesperson statement that “we’re in the business of entertainment, not media or politics” ²¹, alongside separate statements attributing the Palestinian Stories removal to routine licence expiry ¹¹¹². A 2023 report claiming Netflix would “double-match” employee donations to Israeli EMS service United Hatzalah via a Long Island jewelry retailer was subsequently corrected by the outlet that published it, and no verified Netflix-Israel charitable-matching policy has been identified ²².

Mathias Döpfner, Netflix board member since September 2018 ²³²⁴, is Chairman/CEO and an approximately 22% shareholder of Axel Springer SE, whose Yad2 classifieds subsidiary has been documented by Who Profits, The Intercept, and Business & Human Rights Resource Centre as hosting thousands of West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Golan Heights property and business listings, including for-sale settlement businesses ²⁵²⁶⁷. No public evidence identified of Döpfner holding any Israeli defence-industry board role, equity in an Israeli defence prime, or FIDF/reservist-fund donation.

Susan Rice, a former US National Security Advisor and UN Ambassador, served on Netflix’s board from March 2018 and rejoined in September 2023 ²⁷²⁸; No public evidence identified of any Israeli defence-industry directorship, equity holding, or FIDF donation tied to her board service. No public evidence identified of Israeli defence-industry or Israel-specific ties for other named Netflix board members, including Rich Barton, Jay Hoag, Leslie Kilgore, Strive Masiyiwa, Ann Mather, Ellie Mertz, Brad Smith, and Anne Sweeney, based on the FY2025 proxy statement roster ²⁹.

The UN OHCHR settlement-business database update reported in September 2025 (covering 158 firms) named Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, and TripAdvisor as examples in secondary coverage, with no streaming or media company, including Netflix, identified among the named firms ³⁰; direct primary-document confirmation of the full annex could not be obtained, so Netflix’s absence is based on secondary reporting rather than full primary-source review ³¹. No mention of Netflix was located within Al-Haq’s Business and Human Rights advocacy materials ³². No mention of Netflix was identified in available search-snippet review of the UN Special Rapporteur’s July 2025 report on the “economy of occupation to economy of genocide,” though the full document text was not reviewed line-by-line this session ³³.

End Notes