1,300 thoughts on “This Land Is Mine”

1. классно

2. great work!!!
   but you missed the mongols
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_raids_into_Palestine

3. The “Who’s Next” link at the end of the article doesn’t work.

4. Fortunately we Americans have the most moral and peaceful history of all.
   We stole this entire continent and genocided the Indians.
   We made them sign treaties in exchange for their land and never honored even one.
   We enslaved blacks to do our dirty work.
   We murdered 600,000 Americans in a civil war to settle a disagreement.
   We helped murder people in Europe in WWI.
   We enjoyed it so much that we provoked Japan to attack Perl Harbor and ended up incinerating millions of civilians in Germany and Japan.
   We love killing so much that we fought in Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan and are getting ready to do the same in Syria, Yemen and Iran.
   This is all because we are a very peaceful nation.

5. SUPER!))

6. Hllarious !

7. Short history of history? The rhythm brought to mnd Tom Lehrer’s “Who’s got the bomb”, the drawings Henri Rousseau.

   But the important question is if Mr Butler at Uni has seen this? : )

8. Bert you have learned your anti-American lessons well. You have pretty much hit ever bumper sticker that the left has available, question is when will you strap on your suicide belt because i want a rind side seat for my folding chair and popcorn.

9. Hey- So what’d the Persians do to get left out? Also, although maybe they never had the whole thing, you’d think the Plst (Philistines) deserve some mention, since their name stuck. Also “the Amorites in whose land ye dwell”, although maybe they can count as Caananites. And maybe some more (Syro-Hittites? Hyksos?)

10. Simply wonderful!! Thank you!

11. I thought the video quite clever! I think Bert is a little harsh on the americans..but…what the heck; inhumanity to man happens all over the globe and in all countries. The question is: when (if ever) is it going to stop? Hopefully the seemingly self-destructing humankind will make the necessary changes??

12. Quite amusing. 🙂

    You should probably have the IDF guys use M4s, though, instead of AK variant rifles, to distinguish them a bit better. Though heck, maybe that was part of your point.

13. Отлично! Весьма понравилось! Идея и воплощение выполнены превосходно!

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18. Bert, celebrate your progressive self-righteousness somewhere else, please. Self-congratulation dressed as self-flagellation is as ugly as jingoism and far more dishonest.
    If you learn only one thing before you stop wasting space, find out that the US didn’t “provoke” Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor.
    And don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back!

19. I’m guessing Bert is one of those “progressives” who “celebrates diversity” while living in a town/neighborhood that’s over 90% White and middle/upper middle class. Like the Protestant Mainline churches, only without stupid songs.

20. I Love the vid, but a few surprises in this list. I miss the Hittites. i thought your macedonian greeks were hittites, and i took the seleucids for alexander. Because of this i also took your ptolomeic egyptians for the army of ramses 2.

    Anyway, still great vid 🙂

21. U asked, ‘Who is next. its continuation of the war. Should you ask a better question: Who is the terrorist? And the answer is just one word: Everyone!

22. A good paradigm of human race/history!!! Good work, Nina Paley!

    As for Bert and his antagonists, please refer to Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression (1966) (Das sogenannte Böse. Zur Naturgeschichte der Agression, 1963).
    I attended a slovene primary school in Trieste, Italy (very near to Italy north-east border), where teachers taught us that “we” are a good people, but the neighbours not… Allways in history the stronger folk conquered the weaker one, normally killing 3/4 of the previous population (up to 95…). Today one expects that a nation (Israel, Iraq, …) powerful enough to conquere a land (Palestina, Kuwait, …) would accept the respoinsability of the wellfare of the original natives / aboriginals and take care of them ! Well, they (the natives, or Palestinians) are lucky that Israel has not yet approved a “final solution” for them …

23. A champion in delegitimizing the State of Israel, with people like you, who needs enemies ? Who paid ? Anp or Hamas ?

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25. To Angelo Pezzana:
    thanks for the message, but you did not answer to my questions, and – worse – you accuse me of ” A champion in delegitimizing the State of Israel, with people like you, who needs enemies ? Who paid ? ”

    It is difficult to discuss peacefully with people like that.

    I am not delegitimizing no state – too many states have a questionable territory.

    I just write from my experience:

    I am born and living all my life in a city where in 100 years we had 7 states (mosly “liberating” our land), namely, 1) Austro-hungarian empire, 2) Italian kingdom, 3) Italian fascist kingdom, 4) German Nazi Tausendjaehrige Reich, 5) Socialist Tito’s Yugoslavia, 6) Free Teritory under Allied Forces, 7) Italian Republic,
    today, people here are aware of some basic values, like tolerance, respect, mutual aid. And those values should be written in the basic law system, or consitution. In Italy and in Europe today those values are widely accepted (of course, not all agree). Maybe you can tell me what the Israeli consitution tells about the religious minorities, and how the Israeli state takes care of their minorities?
    Last, and not least, I do not agree that war and violence is a good system to acquire territory. It remembers me the theory of “Lebens Raum” :

    “” we must find the courage to gather our people and their strength for an advance along the road that will lead this people from its present restricted living space to new land and soil, and hence also free it from the danger of vanishing from the earth or of serving others as a slave nation. “”

    guess who wrote this?

    Ciao, Matjaž

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27. Everything Bert said is true, at least more true than what all of the other comments are. Secondly, can somebody please get Brite750@ a dictionary. He even used the word “find” incorrectly for goodness sakes!

    I am not trying to make a stereotypical comment, but Bert’s arguement has some proof because if Americans don’t love killing then why do they still have the right to carry guns even after the Sandy Hook school shooting?

    P.S. Great video by the way!

28. To whom it may concern 😉
    well,
    Bert wrote…
    ” ” Fortunately we Americans have the most moral and peaceful history of all.
    …
    We enjoyed it so much that we provoked Japan to attack Perl Harbor and ended up incinerating millions of civilians in Germany and Japan.
    … ” ”

    please replace “we Americans” with “we humans”
    and please instead of ” we provoked ” write :
    ” after the long wars that the Japanese military and economic people started in many Asian
    places … ”
    as far as I know, the Japanese never apologized for their crimes in the 20.th century
    (as many other “powers” never did)

    last, the use of the word “Americans” is incorrect: it seems to me that “Americans” are the inhabitants of the two America continents, from the Inuits on north to the
    Mapuche on south …

29. Excellent video.

    One thing to note:

    For the Jewish/Israelite nation, this is the only land it has or claims for, and this nation is indigenous to that land.

    For all who came after them and most who came before them, this land is an extra territory, a supplement to their ever growing list of conquests and lands that they own, and they originated elsewhere. This is true for the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Mamluks, Turks, Brits, Arabs once more, and most certainly the Angel of Death, who reigns over pretty much elsewhere as well.

30. Regarding the expression “this guy’s land”, referring to a Palestinian, I’d like to point out that lands do not belong to “guys”, they belong to nations. Individuals must unite into groups in order to have the power to claim a land and defend its ownership.

    There was no Palestinian nation before the Jewish nation started returning to the land with the Zionist movement. The Palestinians were then, and still are, a part of the Arab nation, with no differentiated national identity. Were there no Zionists, there would be no Palestinian nation and no Palestinian state. The territory would have been consumed by either Syria, Egypt, or Jordan, as it has throughout all the eons it was not controlled by the Jewish/Israelite nation.

    Palestinian nationality is a claim put forward in order to symmetrize this non-symmetrical dispute. You have an indigenous nation returning to its historical homeland against a vast empire clinging to a tiny sliver of its domain. Being powerless to stop this process by force, the Arab nation renamed the inhabitants of the disputed land as “Palestinians” and presented them as a separate indigeneous nation, just like the Jewish nation.

    To strengthen this claim, they are trying to combine their open pan-Arab nationalism, with false claims to direct ethnic descent from the Philistines, of a Palestinian Jesus, and denial of historical Jewish presence in the area.

31. the land does NOT belong to a nation, neither to a guy: the land is just par of the earth!

    The statement [[ lands do not belong to “guys”, they belong to nations. Individuals must unite into groups in order to have the power to claim a land and defend its ownership. ]]
    is the Israeli’s alibi to steal the land to the previous inhabitants, after the first alibi “God gave it to me” (this sentence was /is used by many kings, dictators, emperors etc)
    [[steal: verb ( past stole |stəʊl|; past part. stolen |ˈstəʊlən|)
    1 [ trans. ] take (another person’s property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it ]]

    I repeat:
    “” —
    Allways in history when a stronger folk conquered a weaker one, normally killed 3/4 of the previous population (often all). Today one expects that a nation (insert here any state name) powerful enough to conquere a land (insert here any land name) would accept the respoinsability of the wellfare of the original natives / aboriginals and take care of them !
    –“”
    so, the question remains: what did Russia for the welfare of the Kamchatka peninsula? what did Japan for the welfare of the Ainu population? what did Israel for the welfare of the muslim population in the occupied territory? One would say that after the 2,nd world war no nation is permitted to steal or occupy other land. The USA explained this to Saddam when he occupied Kuwait (Kuwait was invented short after the 1.st w.w.), but failed to explain this to Israel in the 1967.
    So, the question remains: what did Israel provide for the welfare of the muslim part of the today land controlled by Israel? I would like an answer to just this question.

32. Well, the muslims living in Israel enjoy a much higher standrad of living and many more human rights than in any other arab country. In fact, even though they identify themselves as palestinians, they refuse to have the land that they live in to be designated as a part of the state of palestine, since they know their standard of living will drop. They enjoy full civil rights in Israel, they can elect and be elected, they can become civil servants in any job, they enjoy affirmitive action in all level of the public service (they are guaranteed at least 1 supreme court judge).

    In the 67 territories, the palestinians, even though they continue to struggle against Israel, still enjoy s higher standard of living than most Arab countries (i.e., Syria or Egypt) because of their proximity to Israel.

    In any case, I disagree with your general hypothesis, that states are just a tool to service individuals regardless of their ethnic origin. I believe in the existence of nation and their right to self determination. I believe in the idea of nation states. Even though they must respect the civil rights of all the individuals who live within them, regardless of ethnicity, they must also maintain the national identity of their host nation.

    If your hypothesis is right, than the Arab/Palestinian violent NATIONAL struggle for self determination is immoral and should be stopped immediately, and they should join as Jordan as it’s citizens.

33. I now saw your claim about Israel “stealing” the land from its previous inhabitants.

    This can have 3 interpretations. Depends on whether you think this is a NATIONAL rights issue or a CIVIL rights issue. I don’t know which you mean. I’ll answer all of the possibilities:

    1. Maybe you claim that the Israeli NATION stole the land from preceding NATIONS:
    ——————
    1.A. and that they did that 3000 years ago:
    ——————————————-
    If you accept the biblical narrative, then the Israelites indeed immorally conquered the land, but on the command of a supernatural being who created both the land and humanity.
    If you believe the archaeological narrative, then the Israelites are a nation INDIGENOUS to that land, who sprang there naturally, in the same process that begot almost any other on nation, both 3000 years ago and even much later or earlier. It might have involved domestication of nomadic tribes and perhaps some violence or shifts of power. We do not know everything. What we know is that none of those other nations have existed for almost 3 millenia now, and that they themselves most likely got there through a similar process.

    1.B. or maybe they did that 60 years ago:
    —————————————–
    The Jewish zionists were an indigenous nation to that land, who never ceased to exist, and never ceased to put the claim to sovereignty in this land as its most important goal and reason for existence (and this has nothing to do with the belief in god, just self determination). In this land they found no separate nation, but a collection of individuals identifying themselves as Arabs, a nation that originating to the east, who got to the land by use of force, in their quest for world domination. This nation payed little importance to that sliver of land which is only a tiny piece in its huge real-estate fortune, until the Jews returned.

    2. Israeli INDIVIDUALS stole the place from Arab INDIVIDUALS living there previously, 60 years ago:
    ——————————-
    If you do not concede to the existence of nations, then what happened might seem immoral. However:
    – So is the way the Palestinians got there, or became Arabs, by the use of force and conquest on the quest for global Muslim domination. However, surely, you’d say, there’s no justification in repaying this past immorality with further immorality. OK. In that case:
    – Now the Jews are the individuals living there and the Arabs are the outsiders. Should the past immorality be repayed by future immorality? If you think that indeed this time it should, then:
    – The Arabs ousted the Jews living in Arab countries at the time, and most of them fled to Israel. They were greater in number than the Arab refugees in Palestine and were made to give up a much greater fortune. The debt has been repayed in full.

34. @ichikidana

    Just wanted to comment on a certain belief you seem to hold about the Palestinian being Arab outsiders. They have certainly become very much like Arabs, because all middle eastern semitic peoples share common roots.
    But they are not the same. In fact, it’s been proven that in a number of DNA markers that are common to most jewish people (specially the middle eastern jewish and the sefardi), the genetic distance between Palestinians and Jewish is much smaller than the genetic distance between Palestinians and other Arabs.

    Having in account how the Diaspora didn’t imply, at all, the disappearance of the Jews from Siria-Palestina, we should wonder what happened to the Jews that kept living on the area. With those genetic results, i am quite convinced that many converted to the islam (as it happened in every other country conquered by the caliphate).

    The problems between Israelis and Palestinians are not a problem of West vs. Islam, as much as the extremists in both sides would you like to play you two as (from the Evangelicals who want the restoration of Israel to get a chance and see the Rapture in their lives to the Islamists who think that if Isreal falls, the rest of the planet will convert immediately to the Islam). It’s much more similar, from my point of view, to the Judaean/Samaritan hostility, the hostility between those who had stayed all along and those who go back home after a time in exile.

35. @Jota Be

    You are right. A large component in the Palestinian ancestry is Jewish. They are linked to the Jewish people genetically. During the time that has passed, the Jews who were left in Israel/Canaan/Judea had to choose between immigration or conversion to Islam due to discriminatory laws. I’m sure that some of them even chose it willingly.

    However, I do not believe that national identity is a genetic trait, though there is some correlation. It is a collective trait and not an individual trait. It is held by a group of people and those who join it in each generation. Individuals may join or leave a certain national identity and it will remain intact.

    Those who are called Palestinians these days, have no national connection to the Jewish people. They only have a connection to the Arab Nation. They view themselves as Arabs, they speak Arabic and practice Islam, and they share the pan-Arabic vision. Their elected Hamas government still preaches the vision of global Arab/muslim domination. They still practice honor killings as the Arabs do. Their ancestry is irrelevant. They are Arabs, and their national identity is Arab.

    The Arab national identity originated in Arabia. The Israeli/Jewish/Judean national identity originated in Israel/Judea.
    Arabs from Arabia, Jews from Judea. Arabia is outside of Israel, therefore this nation is an outsider, even if it composed of individuals who have genetic proximity to the indigenous population of this land. The Arab national identity was imported into Israel by the use of force, as part of a global domination scheme. It bases its claim to the land on this conquest.

36. I don’t think the point of the cartoon was the legitimacy of anyone’s claims to the land. The main point is the pointlessness of all that. Fighting is clearly not a long-term solution. Quality of life just gets trampled and yet it really should be the most important thing. Lets work on implementing “the meek shall inherit the earth” before there are no “meek” left.

37. @Alex

    The cartoon mixes between those two points. The author of the cartoon is a Jewess who prides herself on being “the Zionist Jew’s worst nightmare” (see her previous posts). This cartoon was created in that context,as part of a work targeting the Jewish religion.

    One can also determine her bias in this issue by her description of the quarrying characters. The land is described as “This guy’s (the Palestinian’s) land”, while the Zionists are described as ready to kill for “a place to call home” (i.e., any place), are “backed by the west” and they got “lots of weapons and the only non-sanctioned nukes”. Weren’t the Arabs backed by the “the communist block” and got “lots of weapons” and “the only suicide bombing strategy purposefully targeting civilians”?

    In the cartoon, she focused on one aspect of the Jewish claim to the land, which is the “divine promise” argument, and tries to ridicule this argument by showing that it is in no way unique to the Jewish people, can be claimed by anyone who wishes, and is therefore of no universal validity. In any case, regardless of her intentions, this is part of the message that is conveyed through this cartoon.

    In my first message, I tried to show that the Jewish people’s claim for the land is indeed very different from those of other claimants, being the only remaining indigenous nation to the land, and the only one not wanting it for an expansionist ideology.

    The issue of the pointlessness of violence and of any claims to any land has indeed some validity. Perhaps, in an ideal world, the concept of nationality will not exist, and then there will be no ideological excuse for wars. Unfortunately, the concept of nationality does still exist. Why should the Jews be the first one to give up their national cause? Why is the national cause of the Palestinians more worthy? Just because they lost the war they initiated?

    In any case, international disputes are determined through interests and the balance of power, and not through justice. These arguments over the ethics are just good for propaganda, and shed no light on the issue.

38. about the (probably a young american) writing of ichikidana,
    yes, you are right: “” international disputes are determined through interests and the balance of power, and not through justice. “”
    so, we have just to wait until some other folk will be stronger than the present inhabitants of palestina/israel, and do the same thing to them…
    how sad ! “”History does Teach Us Nothing -“”

    beside the ignorance of several state models and organizations beside the USA,
    probably the most interesting statement is:
    “” In the 67 territories, the palestinians, even though they continue to struggle against Israel, still enjoy s higher standard of living than most Arab countries because of their proximity to Israel. “”
    I suggest you to visit some of the 67 territories!!!
    this opinion is quite old, and come out every time you need an alibi in occupying some land.

    about “”Why is the national cause of the Palestinians more worthy? Just because they lost the war they initiated?””
    * it is not about worthy or not worthy – it is my opinion that one of the basic right of every person is to live in peace in the place where is born,

    * and when did the non jewish Palestinians initiate the war?

    I would like to thanks ichikidana:
    the frightening ichikidana writings made me understand again that to argue with integralists, fanatics, or just narrow-minded people is useless.

    p.s.:
    In a Barnes and Noble bookstore I found a book where the author explains that God gaveto Israel
    the land from the Mediterranean sea up to the Eufrat river. So, we have interesting events to observe in the future of Israeli claims …

39. The quality of life in the 67 territories is indeed, as far as I know, higher than in Syria and in Egypt, even in times of peace in those lands.
    Since either Egypt or Syria would have controlled the land in case the Zionists would have lost their struggle for independence and have been genocided by the Arabs, as the Arabs declared to try, this is the fair comparison.
    So being occupied have raised their standard of living, even despite their armed struggle. Their armed struggled lowered their quality of life significantly, which leads me to my next point:

    You continue to present this struggle as a Palestinian struggle for human rights. It is not. This is a struggle for national rights(land/jerusalem/right of relocation into Israel). Here is the proof: The Palestinians have been offered all of the civil rights they want (a state where they can govern all of their lives) and most of the national rights they can have, several times. As early as 1947 and as late as 2009 (almost all of the 67 territory+land swaps, part of Jerusalem, symbolic right of return). They always declined. Why? Because they choose to continue to struggle for every inch of what they perceive as their national rights. That’s legitimate. Still, they choose it willingly. They prefer national rights over human rights.
    The national rights that they demand and are unwilling to budge from contradict the existence of a Jewish national home in the Jewish homeland. This is the root of the conflict.

    BTW, civil rights there are affected by the conflict in a lower order of magnitude than in almost any other conflict in the world, even in history, and especially in the modern day Arab world.
    I’ll give a numeric example. These four conflicts in the region have all the same order of magnitude of number of Arab casualties: The current 2 year civil war in Syria(60k), the 1 month Hama massacre in Syria(30k), the 1 year “black September” Jordanian-Palestinian conflict(20k), the 93 year old Israeli-Arab conflict (91k Arabs killed, of which ~45k Palestinians, many of them by Palestinian, Arab or British hands, 25k Jews).
    A reminder: The Palestinians have been self governed for the past 2 decades. Their major grievance is the settlements. Other than that, Israel only interferes for security reasons (no terror=no interference).

    Also, this is not an alibi to occupy any land. This was just an answer to your question, even though I don’t think it is relevant. The Alibi to occupy this land is that this the Jewish homeland. They are indigenous to that land, unlike the Arabs who are occupiers who came to this land in their quest for world domination, which they have not given up to this day. The Jews are freedom fighters, the Arabs are expansionists. (Please answer this point, if you can).

    When did the Palestinians initiate the war? You can go as far as the 1920 riots, the 1921 Jaffa massacre or the 1929 Hebron massacre, but you don’t have to. The 1948 war was initiated by the Arab world on behalf of the Palestinians, when 5 armies invaded Israel.

    I appreciate your ad-hominem remarks, though I don’t see how I justified them. I answered your arguments and presented my views and am willing to listen to more arguments, and learn new things. You have disregarded my main arguments, though I still hope you will address them somewhen.

    Regarding your guess about my nationality or age, it is wrong. Also, the state model I was referring to (the national home) is very different from that of the USA.

    Regarding that author you presented, he uses the religious argument. This is the argument that Nina Paley ridiculed in this cartoon, in an exceptional way. I believe her criticism of it is valid. Even if this claim is true, and you do have a supernatural being on your side, if you cannot prove it, it is useless. Anyone can claim it. However, the Jewish nation has a valid and verifiable national case, which I have presented here, and you did not address.

    Israel and the Jewish nation do not claim the land that you mentioned. This author does not represent them.

40. nice work. but cyrus the great !? i cant see Achaemenian ?!

41. Great job!

42. awesome

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44. Thank you, Nina! It makes no importance you are not a historian. You a genius as a cartoonist! That’s much more important, I believe!
    I love everything you do. Can we live long and die out?

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46. please see this:

    http://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2013/02/24/foto/il_lato_oscuro_dei_soldati_israeliani_lo_svela_instagram-53315198/1/?ref=HRESS-13#1

    (the good boys…)

47. Brilliant!

48. Janez asks this question: What did Israel provide for the welfare of the muslim part of the today land controlled by Israel?
    To be brutally honest, let me answer the question with a question: When does a conquering nation (or entity) ever treat its new subjects with anything but contempt?
    And in actuality, Israel probably does more for Palestine than any other conqueror does for the people it has subjugated. A brief historical consideration: If the Arab states did not decide to overthrow the new state when it was established by a U.N. vote, many of the arabs living in Israel would have stayed and become as comfortable as most Jews there now, despite what the arabs tell us.
    Furthermore, do the arabs really want a two-state solution? Of course not. Keeping Israel alive along with the settlement issue is good material for arabs to use Israel as the ever accommodating red herring so arabs don’t have to explain why they keep killing each other and just keep on fornicating to produce 2 billion muslims most of whom earn less than a dollar a day and have zilch education.
    Peace in the middle east? Sure, when a thousand brave people die just for professing that awful idea.
    ben

49. Hey, awesome work!
    Just few historical points: you totally forgot about the Persian Empire(just before Alexander the great).
    Also, the Assyrian occupation was after the Israelite one, not before. 🙂

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