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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As a teenager that lives in Israel/Palestine, I think that this video is genius!!
Exept for the Zionist-thay never looked like an orthodox jew, more like a person who lives in the kibutz.
Great film.
So sad.
no Persians?
probably the least considered by the west
Your film has mistakes. First – zionists came to the Palestine much before British, near 1870. British came only in 1918. Second – there were no weapons in zionists’ hands, they came to live on free parts of the lands, or on lands bourght from Turks and Arabs with their full agreement. In big cities like Zfat, Jerusalem, Hevron and more the Jews lived all times and never left them. Third – near Canaanite’s time the first Jew Avraham lived there enough time to became a little nation. I think there are more mistakes. But I don’t have enough knowledge about other periods of time. This film is just one more attempt to distort the history and to say there are no any rights to Jews to these lands.
I hope that there will be no more wars and killing, but great video.
Yes, great video. Stop this killing.
Very beautiful depiction of the wars between nations who wanted to control this region. I think a janissary soldier would better represent ottomans.
Irina, of course jews have the right to live there but without “concentrating” palestinians into “camps”, or without building walls around arabs who want to live there, too.
Regards
History I written by the winner.
So all history is just a slanted opinion.
good stuff
extremely well done
Охрененное видео!!! Great video!
Thanks for this.
Some people seem to take it a bit too literally, which is just the reason for War, isn’t it always?
I’m glad that you remind folks that “this is a cartoon”, they tend to miss when they see it the first time. 😉
I wish that I could get my parents to watch.
They were fans of the Musical… need I say more?
Regarding “the only sanctioned nukes” statement at the State of Israel image: Calling them sanctioned is a bit of misnomer. It’s more like officially making believe they don’t exist. I don’t believe Israel has ever declared that it has nuclear weapons, but everyone generally believe they do, apparently including the American government. I wonder if its a little like poker. If you make people believe you have nukes they may behave the way they would if you actually had nukes. I think that nukes are good as a deterrent. Despite all the violence and limited wars going on for a long time now, the period since the first use of the atomic bomb in 1945 is the longest stretch in history without an all-out war between major powers. And if the mission is deterrent by assured retaliation, they have failed the mission if they actually are ever used.
Well, this rocked my Sephardic Socks! Greetings from Mexico, I love the animation and illustration style. As a graphic designer and ancient history buff, I’ve watched “This Land is Mine” over and over again, every time I notice another tidbit of detail. Excellent message and (pardon me) artistic execution!
Ich hoffe, dass es keine Kriege mehr und Töten, aber tolles Video sein. Und sicherlich, Dank für Ihre Video
Amazing video. There really isn’t any reason to go into historical accuracy as far as who fought who and what time. The point I believe is that people have been claiming the land as theirs and killing others in the process of justification. As and Israeli whenever a non-Israeli asks my opinion of the conflict there they are also surprised to hear that I don’t blindly support the state of Israel and am not much of a fan of any other “power” there. I use the idea of kids playing with toys together that get into fights over them and can’t share. Like a disciplining parent, if you can’t play nicely…no toys for you. Once again…awesome video!
Oh… yeah, yeah… pointing out one inaccuracy in the pursuit of making a point; The IDF doesn’t use ak47s. They’re standard issue is an American made M-16 with a stamp on it that reads “property of the American government”.
Very nice one !
But can you just tell us what is the little jingle at the end ?
Thanks !
As a Iranian citizen I need to Aks Were is Persians? they defeated Babylonian and has been defeated by Alexander.
Genius film! Got it into my collection.
It couldn’t be better!
Congratulations to author!
P.S. From Russia with love :-*
The portrayal of Judas Maccabeus was brilliant. Kudos also goes for using the instrumental interlude as representative of the middle ages. The idea that the “dark ages” represented a gap in human advancement is of course a caricature, but not totally without warrant.
Excellent clip!!! But I agree with some critics here: Zionist ideas are not compatible with ultra-orthodox worldview!
Weird, I haven’t see any Palestinian thug at the beginning of the video…..only AFTER British army occupied the Area…
Nina Hi!! great great work!! as a Canaanite myself (modern Syrian) I really loved this whole thing. n I have a good idea about ancient and modern history of the area, im ready to help anyway possible.
I have to note that the right name to use is Canaan as long as you are talking about ancient history, or Levant the modern name. Israelis or Palestinians (Philistines) or Assyrians …etc are names of peoples not a geographical area like the Canaan name.
so if u wanna know more about ancient Canaanites check, the city of Ugarit and the kingdom of Ebla.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugarit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebla
the image you put as an ancient Canaanite is similar to the statue of Ebih-Il of the Mari civilization on the Euphrates , which is indeed Sumerian as u said.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mari,_Syria
the main deity of Canaan, El, look always with horns of a bull.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_(deity)
According to The Oxford Companion to World Mythology,
It seems almost certain that the God of the Jews evolved gradually from the Canaanite El, who was in all likelihood the ‘God of Abraham’… If El was the high God of Abraham—Elohim, the prototype of Yahveh—Asherah was his wife, and there are archeological indications that she was perceived as such before she was in effect ‘divorced’ in the context of emerging Judaism of the 7th century BCE. (See 2 Kings 23:15)
what im saying here that all of the Semitic peoples (and also non Semitic peoples) that ruled or lived or invaded here use the same rhetoric that is presented very much in ur amazing video and it is the same rhetoric in this Zionist song or in the Arab and Islamic culture.
one man that presented the real ideology that end the conflict between the descendants of these ancient peoples, his name is Antoun Saadeh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoun_Saadeh
I don’t agree with everything he believes, but the main general idea is absolutely right. the Fertile Crescent present one nation, the mixture of all the nations who passed from here and took from each other, just like what the Oxford says, the Jewish religion is a natural development of the Canaanite religions that were already in the area, and the Hebrews like everyone else are invaders.
so having two nationalist contradicting ideologies will never end the fighting. today they are represented in Zionism and Arab nationalism. meanwhile Syrian Nationalism oppose both and declare a one Semitic nation in the area.
also, the Persians (who freed the Hebrews from Babelonians) should be mentioned.
I really hope we stay in touch. I use fb
ps. the Zionist guys look so much like Theodor Herzel. bkhkhkhkhkh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Herzl
great film
hopefully one day man can live together peacefully with the mantra ‘ours’ and not ‘mine’ wherever one lives
Wonderful video!!
This is a brilliant piece of art! I wish people would not be so political about it!
It’s like youtube; anything you post starts to be a political or religious rant!
Who cares! Just enjoy the video!!
Peace out!!! 🙂
I shared this on twitter as the first in a series of tweets I have hashtagged #thereforefeminism. Great stuff. Thanks @gingerdisco99
SO fantastic! Loved it!
My teacher showed it to us in class to show what wonderful animation this was.
How did you make this? I assume after effects with 2D images. But there’s also a way to do it in Maya.
this funny video shows how stupid that idiot war there, for that no man’s land 🙁 free palestine!
I think this is one of the best things I have ever seen. One suspicion I have is that herding cultures being around violence (slaughter) daily have slightly altered brains. The Abrahamics seem not only to have brought an incredible amount of violence into the world but also seem guilty of designating females as a subspecies on par with the animals they herded and culling them and mutilating their genitalia accordingly…what originated as horrible acts of domestic violence became tradition…all animals have an inborn superior regard for their species above others and the Abrahamics seem to have foisted on the world a separate species classification for females which goes against nature and all common sense. What this film demonstrates to me above all is that the altered brains of violent cultures are unable to evolve along an evolutionary line the way other humans seem to be able to, and instead keep repeating the same behaviors over millenia. It is actually quite sad, when one considers what humanity is really capable of.
which program did you used to do this video?
Dear Nina,
You need some substantive and more accurate history education. Your depiction of the Jews is extremely stereotypical and distorted.
The angel of death is the real hero of the Hebrew Bible? Are you kidding? Have you ever even read an entire page from it? Do some homework, girl!
so that’s why Jews live everywhere. except homeland. it is not surprising that your land and the people be damned.
You need some substantive and more accurate history education. Your depiction of the Jews is extremely stereotypical and distorted. Apotheke
I take issue with your characterization of recent history in these lines…â€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…so were the people that lived thereâ€.
Your facts are not right and a little out of order chronologically.
Zionism pre-dated the death camps of the Holocaust by a bout 50 years so you’re only half right. They way you phrase it, you imply what many of Israel’s critics incorrectly think, that Israel ONLY exists as a response to the Holocaust.
Furthermore, the first Zionist settlements in what was then called Palestine pre-dated Brittish rule. The first Zionists came to Palestine toward the end of the Ottoman Turk’s rule of the land and in fact made a deal with the Ottomans to build a Jewish homeland there, but that deal went away temporarily when the Ottoman empire fell and the Brittish took over.
Second of all, the way you draw the ‘European Jew/Zionist†is not accurate. Chances are, if a Jew dressed like that back then, they would’ve been Anti- Zionist. The guy you drew looks like a Chasidic religious Jew and most of the early Zionists were Jewish by blood and heritage but were for the most part, non-religious. Many were even anti-religious. Most Kibbutzes were commune farms, inhabited by communists.
Finally I take issue with the idea that the Zionists settled on “someone else’s†land. If you’re talking about the West Bank and Gaza, you have a case to make but before 1967, the vast majority of the land that the Jews settled on was uninhabited and up to that point uninhabitable. They had to dry up swamps by planting eucalyptus trees and irrigate crops in the desert with sea water in order to settle the land that now makes up most of Israel proper. You wouldn’t know that from looking at Israel today because there is a lot of lush greenery, and a lot of cities and towns around but those are all man-made. Planted and built by guess who: Zionists.
P.S. I’m sure you’re tired of hearing Israel’s apologists say this but since the Jews’ first return from exile in Babylon (now Iraq) there’s NEVER been a time when there weren’t Jews living in Palestine. Yes there are many more now, but there were always at least a few communities there, in and around Jerusalem especially.