Saturday, October 22, 2016

"This land is our land" - somewhat speeded up


This video from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs is kicking up a certain amount of angst in the Middle East and among Palestinian supporters and activists.  You can read all about it at Legal Insurrection.  Me . . . I'm just laughing at it, and enjoying it.





I think I could have done a much better British Civil Servant accent than that actor . . . and since my father once served as escort commander on the Cairo to Haifa Railway during one of his journeys in World War II, I daresay I've a hereditary claim on the office, dammit!  Mine! - or should I say, Mine too!




Peter

6 comments:

Kristophr said...

This land in Mine!

https://youtu.be/-evIyrrjTTY

Will said...

Peter,

I suspect that they deliberately chose a caricature of a British officer. I'm not sure if that fits in with the other actors, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a deliberate slap against them. The memory of how the British .gov acted against them is still within actual survivors of that era.

Anonymous said...

Given that your Dad was "OC train", and that you are a former soldier, you absolutely have to read George Macdonald-Fraser's "McAuslan" books. They are a very funny semi-autobiographical stories of his time as a 2LT in the Gordon Highlanders just after The War. One of the stories involves him as "OC Train"

The books are;

The Sheik and the Dustbin, The General Danced at Dawn, and MCAuslan in the Rough.

Cheers,

Paul from Canada

BadFrog said...

Did your father ever encounter George MacDonald Fraser who also describes that night train in 'The General Danced at Dawn'?

Peter said...

@Paul and Badfrog: Yes, I've read Fraser's books, and I'm familiar with his tale of train escort duty. However, he was there some time after the end of the war - probably 1946/47. My father did the trip in 1943.

Quartermaster said...

The people that put things together should have read the book of Judges. There were a lot more people that invaded before the Assyrians.

The Brit is a total caricature. The lack of "Public School" accent is a tell.

The story if a bit sped up. Those that complain about treating the so called "Palestinians" as "Johnny come lately" either have no idea what the history of the place is, or just want to grind an ax or two. The Holy Land was very lightly populated during the 19th century. The waves of Arab immigration did not take place until the British mandate. In spite of the Balfour Declaration, the Mandate limited Jewish immigration quite a bit. The Brits even turned away Jews that were trying to escape Europe before the Germans laid hands on them. It's one of the biggest black marks in the British copybook, ever.