I've Never Seen the Israel / Palestine Conflict Illustrated More Uniquely Than This

The story shared by Israel and Palestine has been told in several stunning films, but I don't think I've ever seen it told like this.

Nina Paley created this (extremely brief) animated history of the land that was at one time called Israel, Palestine, Canaan and the Levant. She even created this viewer's guide to make sense of what's happening.

(Want to dive in deeper? Check out these excellent films.)

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