A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Nina Paley's "This Land is Mine"

Yes, Part II of Hester Stanhope is coming. Meanwhile, back to the present century.

This is several years old, but I'm sorry to say it's not out of date. It dates from 2012 and is by Jewish-American cartoonist Nina Paley. I'm stunned I never ran this before.

For the non-historians, she has helpfully provided a guide to the various sides, such as the fact that the guy with the gigantic hammer is a Maccabee (which means hammer). (One quibble: the IDF doesn't use AK-47s.)

The song, which you mercifully rarely hear these days, was set to the theme music of the film Exodus, the 1960 Otto Preminger film in which blue-eyed Paul Newman, blonde Eva-Marie Saint, Italian Sal Mineo and others founded the State of Israel. The words were not used in the movie theme. And, I really am not making this up: the lyrics were written by Pat Boone and are sung here by Andy Williams.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brilliant.

David Mack said...

Thanks, Mike. Once again, someone from Israeli civil society has more insight than Israeli, Arab and U.S. politicians.

Anonymous said...

It's not a lack of insight on the part of US politicians. It's just pure and simple hypocrisy as William Polk pointed out.

Anonymous said...

Nina was born in Illinois and is a US citizen. She resides in the USA.

I am not aware that she has used her right to obtain an Israeli passport.

Michael Collins Dunn said...

That was my understanding. The original post referred to her as a Jewish-American.