Book Review: Palestine by Joe Sacco
Palestine is a graphic novel by Joe Sacco, a journalist and comic maker born in Malta and graduate from the University of Oregon. His work is very effective. The detailed images add to the powerful storytelling of Sacco’s trip through the occupied territories of the Palestinian West Bank in Israel.
The book is decidedly one-sided, although it is told from the side that most of us have never heard. Mostly it details Sacco’s meetings with Palestinians who suffer hardships under Israeli occupation. The book is a good read, although I don’t feel I really learned anything new about the conflict in the Middle East, but there are some things that I may want to follow up on and learn more about. It is hard not to sympathize with the Israelis when you read stories like this.
Sacco has also written about the conflict in Bosnia in his book Safe Area Gorazde. I’ll keep an eye out for more of his work in the future.
I don’t know exactly when you posted this review but that isn’t important since this area has been in conflict for so long that no one book could ever do it justice. I do want to comment about the mention you made, and the link that went with it, about “sympathize (ing) with the Israelis when you read stories like this.” I went to your link and from what I could tell this was just another news item that adds to the stress without telling us anything. Of course, the Israelis and the US may have an agenda in their response to this story that says more about their need for justifications for spending more and more and more to make war. But if you read the story the way I did you would see that the Iran position only indicates wishful thinking not, I repeat not, actual plans to eradicate anything.
I absolutely agree with this comment. My own exposure to the Middle East has been through North American media. This means I haven’t heard much except what comes from the Israeli side. Obviously there are two sides to every story. Palestine the graphic novel, is the other. Of course neither is correct on its own, they both need to be weighed. My brother spent 6 months in Israel and came away with a unique perspective of the area, especially how Palestinians were being treated in the country. The purpose of this entry was to promote an interesting viewpoint, and remind myself to spend more time learning about this topic, and this important part of the world.