Netflix’s ‘The Diplomat’ appears to pay tribute to slain Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin

The Netflix political thriller “The Diplomat” appears to reference slain Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin in its fourth season, drawing parallels between a fictional World War II story and the events surrounding his abduction by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.

In the sixth episode of Season 4, released on Netflix on Oct. 15 alongside the season’s other seven episodes, English housekeeper Frances Munning, who works at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in London, explains to senior aide Stuart Heyford why she feels a special connection to Americans.

Munning recalls how a U.S. soldier named ‘Hershel Polin’ from Richmond, Virginia, saved her father’s life while fighting alongside him in Belgium during World War II. According to her account, the young soldier picked up a German grenade that had landed near them and threw it away, losing his hand when it exploded moments later.

(Photo: Screenshot/The Diplomat)

Viewers quickly drew parallels between the fictional soldier and Goldberg-Polin, who spent part of his childhood in Richmond, Virginia, as well as his friend Aner Shapira, who was killed while defending others from grenades thrown into a roadside shelter during the Hamas-led attack on the Nova music festival.

On Oct. 7, Goldberg-Polin and Shapira were among a group of people who took refuge in the shelter as Hamas terrorists attacked. Shapira threw seven grenades out of the shelter before an eighth exploded in his hands, killing him.

Goldberg-Polin lost part of his left arm in the attack. He managed to apply a tourniquet to stop the bleeding before Hamas terrorists kidnapped him to Gaza.

Goldberg-Polin became one of the most widely recognized hostages after his parents, Rachel and Jon, launched an international campaign to raise awareness of the hostages’ plight. He was murdered in August 2024 alongside five other hostages in a tunnel in Gaza as Israeli forces approached their location.

“Several people told us about the episode yesterday, but we don’t watch TV, so we have not seen it,” Rachel Goldberg-Polin said in a statement to journalists. “It’s striking to know there are many people around the world trying to ensure the stories of the hostages are not whitewashed or erased.”