I envisioned This Land Is Mine as the last scene of my potential-possible-maybe- feature film, Seder-Masochism, but it’s the first (and so far only) scene I’ve animated. As the Bible says, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
This Land Is Mine from Nina Paley on Vimeo.
Who’s Killing Who? A Viewer’s Guide
Because you can’t tell the players without a pogrom!
Early Man
This generic “cave man” represents the first human settlers in Israel/Canaan/the Levant. Whoever they were.
Canaanite
What did ancient Canaanites look like? I don’t know, so this is based on ancient Sumerian art.
Egyptian
Canaan was located between two huge empires. Egypt controlled it sometimes, and…
Assyrian
….Assyria controlled it other times.
Israelite
The “Children of Israel” conquered the shit out of the region, according to bloody and violent Old Testament accounts.
Babylonian
Then the Baylonians destroyed their temple and took the Hebrews into exile.
Macedonian/Greek
Here comes Alexander the Great, conquering everything!
Greek/Macedonian
No sooner did Alexander conquer everything, than his generals divided it up and fought with each other.
Ptolemaic
Greek descendants of Ptolemy, another of Alexander’s competing generals, ruled Egypt dressed like Egyptian god-kings. (The famous Cleopatra of western mythology and Hollywood was a Ptolemy.)
Seleucid
More Greek-Macedonian legacies of Alexander.
Hebrew Priest
This guy didn’t fight, he just ran the Second Temple re-established by Hebrews in Jerusalem after the Babylonian Exile.
Maccabee
Led by Judah “The Hammer” Maccabee, who fought the Seleucids, saved the Temple, and invented Channukah. Until…
Roman
….the Romans destroyed the Second Temple and absorbed the region into the Roman Empire…
Byzantine
….which split into Eastern and Western Empires. The eastern part was called the Byzantine Empire. I don’t know if “Romans” ever fought “Byzantines” (Eastern Romans) but this is a cartoon.
Arab Caliph
Speaking of cartoon, what did an Arab Caliph look like? This was my best guess.
Crusader
After Crusaders went a-killin’ in the name of Jesus Christ, they established Crusader states, most notably the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Mamluk of Egypt
Wikipedia sez, “Over time, mamluks became a powerful military caste in various Muslim societies…In places such as Egypt from the Ayyubid dynasty to the time of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, mamluks were considered to be “true lords”, with social status above freeborn Muslims.[7]” And apparently they controlled Palestine for a while.
Ottoman Turk
Did I mention this is a cartoon? Probably no one went to battle looking like this. But big turbans, rich clothing and jewelry seemed to be in vogue among Ottoman Turkish elites, according to paintings I found on the Internet.
Arab
A gross generalization of a generic 19-century “Arab”.
British
The British formed alliances with Arabs, then occupied Palestine. This cartoon is an oversimplification, and uses this British caricature as a stand-in for Europeans in general.
Palestinian
The British occupied this guy’s land, only to leave it to a vast influx of….
European Jew/Zionist
Desperate and traumatized survivors of European pogroms and death camps, Jewish Zionist settlers were ready to fight to the death for a place to call home, but…
PLO/Hamas/Hezbollah
….so were the people that lived there. Various militarized resistance movements arose in response to Israel: The Palestinian Liberation Organization, Hamas, and Hezbollah.
State of Israel
Backed by “the West,” especially the US, they got lots of weapons and the only sanctioned nukes in the region.
Guerrilla/Freedom Fighter/Terrorist
Sometimes people fight in military uniforms, sometimes they don’t. Creeping up alongside are illicit nukes possibly from Iran or elsewhere in the region. Who’s Next?
and finally…
The Angel of Death
The real hero of the Old Testament, and right now too.
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Stunning and hilarious and right on. Thank you!
Over-generalization put everything in meta-language which reveals the final hero, Angel of Death. The same hero plays to the whole of human history as well, just covered by periods of blossoming. So important is to show the whole game in historically correct frame as here. If the history of science will be animated one day, even in small branch, it will be the same. Human race make two steps forward and one and half back every time, payig the same price again and again, which price legimized by castoms. The time to check the same way as people check their expencies for houshold etc.
Wonderful sweep of sad history and terrible tragedy in a tongue-in-cheek animation that should be compulsory education regarding human’s inhumanity to fellow humans, the madness of retribution, and toxicity of revenge. I would just like to add that between Adam and the arrival of the Canaanites on the scene there must have been just as much barbarity, killings and bloodshed between earlier communities of nomadic peoples. And they call it the land of God. I wonder if there ever was a land of the devil what it would be like, the series “Childhood’s End” comes to mind.
Dear Nina Paley, thanks for the marvellous animation of the terrible history of the Middle East/the world. May I please use it in a psychotherapy forum on “Identity in the Middle East” at AUT University in Auckland Aotearoa New Zealand in September 2016? Best Regards to you, congratulations on your work. Paul Solomon
I thought that was greek.
Wow, Israel really *is* the Holy Land.
Thanks, great visualization of all conflicts over there!
If one showed 100 years old photos of children playing, the same conclusion could come out. They died. Maybe the “why” question at the end of this great animations could stay opened?
Nina Paley, hi. I’m here to ask about the version of Exodus Song that plays in the credits, I really liked and I was wondering if you could tell the author. I searched about sax versions of the music but none of the songs that I found were what I want.
Anyway, that’s all. The video is just fantastic, I love your work.
Thanks.
Lucas Lucena, the song it’s in the credits. It’s Exodus Song sung by Andy Williams.
Watching this video and seeing a story that is not new, but that (as far as I know) was never portrayed in such a clever fashion, it makes me think that the Palestine (that geographical ever disputed territory that recently became the state of Israel) should become a global territory per excellence, meaning that the day humanity can settle that conflict for good will only come when we stop trying to conquer each other and start learning how to cooperate for a common cause, for the well being of all humans. When that happens the Palestine should be a land where everyone can live, not a land that God gave to this or to that side of the equation.
Sorry Lucas Lucena, I only understood what you asked after I had answered it wrong.
However, I found the answer using Sound Hound, it’s a very good app to discover music. It’s Exodus by Quincy Jones https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl6uMU6v3UQ
This is utterly brilliant, just one tiny tiny thing. You should’ve added the bit where the post war European settlers killed the British soldiers who took them there. I know it’s difficult to get everything in but it’s significant and almost forgotten.
Hi, Nina,
I teach American Indian studies classes and I always use this wonderful masterpiece of exploration when I teach about genocide in the Americas. Students see the corrolarries without a problem – even understanding that some Native American tribes colonized others with
“the help of God.”
Deborah Dozier
Egyptians were from Egypt.
Babylonians were from Mesoptamia
Assorted Greeks were from Greece.
Romans were from Rome
Ottomans were from Turkey
Europeans were from Europe.
They all had empires, not claiming the land belonged to them. For them, it was just another conquest. It’s like the hen and the pig and the English breakfast. For the hen, there’s involvement. For the pig, it’s a committment.
Alexander wasn’t killed.
Dear Nina,
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this video. It meets the requirements for a “3-I” rating – intelligent, iconic, and ironic!
I teach American Indian studies classes at a community college in Southern California. One of the challenges is to explain the robustness of the story of colonization of this continent – each side with its own perspective and with voices in their heads that say, “Approved by God!”
Your video does two things that are really important to me. 1) It blows my students minds wide open so that 2) they are able to to conceptualize colonization in a new and meaningful way. This video gives them the tools to understand what happened in the Americas starting with the empire built through Aztec colonization – right on up to today.
And btw, please copy and share this as you choose! ; )
In admiration,
Deborah
I think this is very good, but there’s something that’s inaccurate that bothers me – the depiction of the European Zionist Jews as Haredi (ultra-orthodox). It does wrong to both the Zionists and the Haredi’s:
-Most Zionist of that time, and especially the ones participating in the armed struggle against the British and the Palestinians, were secular Jews, that resented the so-called “diasporic Jew” and had a vision of a “new Jew” which is a person of the land – a farmer, a worker etc. They definitely did not dress as Haredi’s.
-Many (maybe Most) Haredi’s of that time opposed the armed struggle, as they believe that it is religiously forbidden for Jews to “rebel against the nations” and claim independence, until the Messiah arrives.
So although this look is distinctly of European Jews, it is not the way the armed Zionists looked at the time. For a more accurate depiction you can look at photos of members of Haganah and Palmach (two of the major Zionist guerrilla organizations):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haganah
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmach
I just love the way how real owner of this land emerges in the end. And how easily this cartoon can be generalized for the whole history of mankind.
Superb work. To answer your question, western Romans did fight the Byzantines, but not in Israel 🙂
You missed Sassanids, who took the land and were kicked out by the Byzantines thirty years later and ten years before the Arab invasion.
At last, I understand the history of the world! Presented in a format that even a millennial could grasp! The profound futility of war, the urgent need for compassion and understanding of all peoples of whatever faith and orientation!
OK, back to cat videos.
To the extent that it is accurate, this shows a very detailed chronology of the region’s power struggles & horrible brutality. Not anything to find comfort in the situation today, except the beautiful voice of Pat Boone, helping to preserve hope for a better world.
One important soldier – conqueror that was left out of the video were the PERSIANS !
The cavemen (Natufians, apparently) were not invaded and killed by the Canaanites, and the Israelites did not come from somewhere else and attacked the Canaanites! Natufians developed into Canaanites, and Israelites were a kind of Canaanite.
Cool video and explanation. However, the religious-hatred overtones that you express were a little bit annoying (The real hero of the Old Testament).
And where are the Russians, the Soviets? Where are the Germans? Where is World War I and World War II? Where is the Cold War?
Suberb. However, the video mentions the sassanid and achaemenids. Here you didnt even mention persia once!
But what would be the solution to end this?
The earliest invasion is of the jewish people motivated by religious reason. Should they be moved somewhere else? Has there enough time past since the second world war so people finally start to admit jews are agressors in this case and have empathy for the palestians whom have also gone through a holocoust like invasion?
How else could the two sides make peace?
Great cartoon and excellent analysis! Two notes: you did leave out the Achaemenid Persians in their defeat of Babylon. The levant is even more contested than shown. Also, replace the word “Byzantine” for “Sassanid Persian” and you make it much more accurate. And the garb plus mustache you have there is quite Persian rather than Byzantine catafract-y.
Excellent video!
The Israelites were born when the Mesopotamians ie Semites (Abraham and Lot etc) exiled themselves during the Persian-Mesopotamian wars to the land of the Canaanites, the forefathers of the Palestinians.
What right did Britain have to grant you somebody else’s country?
Jews have suffered discrimination, murder. There was only one place were Jews was not discriminated and murdered, was Muslim world that’s why under the protection of Muslims, Jews left the Europe.
Had Jews lived side by side with Muslims century upon century without any single trace of discrimination, so what Happened in Europe which Christian Anti Semitism massacre 6 million Jews and was paid for not by Christion Europeans but was paid by very people who were innocent of that Holocaust, Palestinians whose country wiped by Zionism. ” George Galloway
Love this video…I find myself watching this frequently. I saw your TEDx video on “Copyright is Brain Damage” and I was wondering if you are selling those angel of death shirts?
Keep up the great work!
hello everyone
does any one knows a book ( or books ) concerning this video type and different people and nations throughout the years of a mankind’s existing ?
and thank you
This is great. The contrast between the nationalist Kitsch audio and the bloody slaughtering visual could actually be applied to plenty of other places, too.
I particularly liked the “take my hand”-moment 🙂
Actually, I have a suggestion for a solution: apply China’s 1 child policy to the middle east and stop immigration, and in 100 years, they will not let their now precious offspring kill each other. Anti human rights? Indeed, but less
so than downsizing population by constant killing.
A very good job…
I saw this, understood how accurate it is to how we are going, put it on my phone and took it to Bible Study.
God already knew what was going on, of course.
I liked in general this explanation/description of the history of the Holy Land.
And much more i liked and sometimes angered by the misconception, ignorance of the real historical facts as they really happened.
Further, i am impressed of the worldwide interest honored upon the events in the land of Cnaan/Israel.
Were not Jews involved, i am sure i would interest nobody, exactly of the nowadays events in Afganistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and various african countries, all and each bordering with genocide.
Nobody really cares, nobody feels remorse for the millions of dead, displaced and tortured there.
Well, no Jews there.
Besides, how do Jews dare to really have a country claiming their own, even if promissed by God.
Uncomprehendable!
Jews, in the mind of many, even today, are homeless, drifting people. And i guess to uproot this conception will take decades if not… Centuries, no matter how and what Jews will do.
One thing conforts me, no palestinian arab muslim or christian within Israel doesn’t want to replace his/hers life and rights for any one, of even the best, of the many muslim countries.
Although the plain truth nobody likes, still i would like to corrrect, set right, some of the wrong conceptions i found within many of the comments:
The Jews (Zionist…, not all are) did not conwuer and colonize the land of Cnaan. They just… “Returned home”, as could have happened to other nations, e.g. american italians, poles, irish, etc. They wouldn’t have been considered conquerors.
The iraelis are not european conquering jews. The israeli jewish population consists of jews, beside european origin, from a multitude of countries round the world. Among them many, many from ME muslim countries (where as of today these countries are almost “Judenrein”), thanks to the Wonderful, Pleasant life they had among the muslims (please learn the love of muslim towards jews also from their Qouran).
Then the british did in no way help jews immigrate to Cnaan, on the contrary, they did everything possible to prevent it, even during WWII when many looked for countries to find asylum to save their lives.
Then, the alleged cruelty and killing spree of the israeli soldiers, is the biggest lie right in the face of reality facts. Without shame.
Who, where are these righteous people, who if attacked wouldn’t try to defend themselved, yet many complain for the daring of israelis to self defense.
My oppinion is that if the nations would care more to look into the real facts, unbiased, much of the muslim and arab violence would die away, thus enabling talks face to face, equal to equal.
It is a difficult issue and plenty of wrong doing due to ancient hate and ignorance that is why my comment is so long.
Dear reader, if you read through here, i appreciate your honesty and perseverence. Furthermore i hope it enlighted you a bit with more correct facts.
Thank you.
Maybe that area should be known as The Holey Land to commemorate the people constantly putting holes in each other.
Humans kill humans all over the world. But the concept of God Given Land was established by Judaism.
The Greek, Roman, Egyptian gods were part of nature. They were not above nature and therefore could not give nature.
Now, if the usual fights over territory that happen constantly all over the world are not enough,
various believers (Christian, Muslim, Jews) have a religious belief that is calling them to fight in order to return the land to the truly chosen people (Christian, Muslim, Jews.)
Oy vey
Kindly combine the two above messages into one if you can
murder and destruction is the way of man. even god killed the “chosen people” when
they worshiped the golden calf!
>>Creeping up alongside are illicit nukes possibly from Iran or elsewhere in the region.
Just to clarify….the only nation in the Middle East to own illicit nuclear weapons is Israel. And this is a fact!
Great video. I’ve been using this to explain the history of that area since 2012. Please, keep up the good work.