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Israeli government criticised for video depicting Palestinians as home invaders who only recently arrived

'What an awful, warped piece of propaganda. A complete and total erasure of Palestinians'

Samuel Osborne
Tuesday 11 October 2016 15:47 BST
Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticised for Land of Israel 'propaganda' video

Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been criticised for sharing an "awful, warped piece of propaganda" after it published a satirical video about the history of the Jewish people.

Titled "Welcome to the Home of the Jewish People," the three-and-a-half minute long video depics Jacob, Rachel and their child, enjoying life in the "Land of Israel".

"No matter who came knocking at the door, the Jews stayed put in their home-sweet-home, the Land of Israel, for 3,000 years," the post on the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs Facebook page reads.

However, the couple are interrupted by a knock at the door from "two hipsters with well-groomed beards" who speak in an "ancient assyrian language".

After the Asyrrians take over the living room, Jacob and Rachel move to their bedroom. "So it's now 750BC. In about 2,750 years, we'll have some quiet here," Jacob jokes.

The family are then interrupted again by a procession of visitors who claim the house as their own, including Greeks, Romans, Arabs, crusaders, Mamluks and Turks from the Ottoman Empire.

There is then another knock on the door as the British arrive, claiming the house in the name of the British Empire.

The British then give them back their house "in the name of the League of Nations".

The couple celebrate the news, and Jacob says: "Finally, a state of our own, the Land of Israel."

However, they are interrupted by a Palestinian couple knocking on the door, who peer inside the house before the video ends.

The video has been denounced as racist, historically inaccurate and insulting.

"What an awful, warped piece of propaganda," one person commented underneath the video. "A complete and total erasure of Palestinians. Do you really think people are this stupid?"

One commentor said: "Our foreign minister pushing the narrative of ignorance... The truth is the Jews were a minority for most of the last thousand years in Israel, arabs lived here for a pretty long time, and geopolitics is not as simple as [defence minister Avigdor] Liberman would like it to be."

Another wrote: "Except that, you know, after the couple got their home back they started taking other flats in the building and claiming it was always theirs."

The Independent has contacted the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.

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