Palestine, Vol. 2: In the Gaza Strip

Palestine #2

by Joe Sacco

Based on years of research and extended visits to the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the early 1990s, "Palestine" is the first major comics work of political nonfiction by Sacco.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Nonfiction, History, Bande Dessinée, Politics, Graphic Novels Comics

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Joe Sacco was born in Malta on October 2, 1960. At the age of one, he moved with his family to Australia, where he spent his childhood until 1972, when they moved to Los Angeles. He began his journalism career working on the Sunset High School newspaper in Beaverton, Oregon. While journalism was his primary focus, this was also the period of time in which he developed his penchant for humor and satire. He graduated from Sunset High in 1978.

Sacco earned his B.A. in journalism from the University of Oregon in 1981 in three years. He was greatly frustrated with the journalist work that he found at the time, later saying, "[I couldn't find] a job writing very hard-hitting, interesting pieces that would really make some sort of difference." After being briefly employed by the journal of the National Notary Association, a job which he found "exceedingly, exceedingly boring," and several factories, he returned to Malta, his journalist hopes forgotten. "...I sort of decided to forget it and just go the other route, which was basically take my hobby, which has been cartooning, and see if I could make a living out of that," he later told the BBC.

He began working for a local publisher writing guidebooks. Returning to his fondness for comics, he wrote a Maltese romance comic named Imħabba Vera ("True Love"), one of the first art-comics in the Maltese language. "Because Malta has no history of comics, comics weren't considered something for kids," he told Village Voice. "In one case, for example, the girl got pregnant and she went to Holland for an abortion. Malta is a Catholic country where not even divorce is allowed. It was unusual, but it's not like anyone raised a stink about it, because they had no way of judging whether this was appropriate material for comics or not."

Eventually returning to the United States, by 1985 Sacco had founded a satirical, alternative comics magazine called Portland Permanent Press in Portland, Oregon. When the magazine folded fifteen months later, he took a job at The Comics Journal as the staff news writer. This job provided the opportunity for him to create another satire: the comic Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy, a name he took from an overly-complicated children's toy in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

But Sacco was more interested in travelling. In 1988, he left the U.S. again to travel across Europe, a trip which he chronicled in his autobiographical comic Yahoo. The trip lead him towards the ongoing Gulf War (his obsession with which he talks about in Yahoo #2), and in 1991 he found himself nearby to research the work he would eventually publish as Palestine.

The Gulf War segment of Yahoo drew Sacco into a study of Middle Eastern politics, and he traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories to research his first long work. Palestine was a collection of short and long pieces, some depicting Sacco's travels and encounters with Palestinians (and several Israelis), and some dramatizing the stories he was told. It was serialized as a comic book from 1993 to 2001 and then published in several collections, the first of which won an American Book Award in 1996.

Sacco next travelled to Sarajevo and Goražde near the end of the Bosnian War, and produced a series of reports in the same style as Palestine: the comics Safe Area Goražde, The Fixer, and the stories collected in War's End; the financing for which was aided by his winning of the Guggenheim Fellowship in April 2001. Safe Area Goražde won the Eisner Award for Best Original Graphic Novel in 2001.

He has also contributed short pieces of graphic reportage to a variety of magazines, on subjects ranging from war crimes to blues, and is a frequent illustrator of Harvey Pekar's American Splendor. Sacco currently lives in Portland.

Reviews

[Tawfek · Rating 4 out of 5]

an amazing journey i recommend it very much to all graphic novel lovers.
and to all Maus lovers
heads up tho kind of a heavy reading not the same light style of Maus even tho Maus was much better
it was a coincidence when i found myself reading 4 novels and and short stories collections of Palestine in a row i don't like reading about the same subject back to back but its the 2 months of Palestine reads i guess.
Joe Saco drawing is hilarious i mean look at his huge lips all over the comic and when u see his real picture u think to yourself he isnt ugly not at all and not one person from the comic is ugly as well its just his journalistic art it looks like caricature that you see in journals all the time
you will find yourself not sympathizing with the Israelis all over the comic in anyway they are the occupying army and they want peace !!! then leave... its as simple as that and then again its not so simple they don't have a country to call their own
and they have no claim to this land so yeah its complicated but they know exactly what they are doing the sarcasm of it all that when he meets anyone of them they say they want peace
and when he enters a refugee camp they find the same people beating up Palestinians
and Joe saco being joe saco opened a lot of places for him a lot of people spoke of the truth and even me who just finished reading 3 other books about Palestine learned a lot of new things that he shed light upon
its a tragedy and it will always be a tragedy there is bombing at gaza these days as am writing this review and its just sad
i hope the land returns to the owners someday but i know this wont happen without a great war

[Ju$tin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hot damn. The artwork in these books is top notch. Many pages had me staring at the pictures longer than reading the words.

Very dense work, more words per page than any other comic I've read.

Fascinating and enlightening.

Only complaint is that I had to google a few things throughout the book, so it wasn't as user friendly as I would have liked.

[Kristina Coop-a-Loop · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m guessing that this is a series because this book just stops. The bus Joe Sacco is on to go to Cairo is lost and the driver stops for directions…and that’s it. So…I’m kinda wondering if he gets to Cairo and what he finds when he gets there, but mostly I’m relieved to be finished with this graphic novel—which is not a novel. It’s about the time he spent in Palestinian refugee camps.

I found this book interesting, but I wasn’t crazy about it. While I think his art work graphically displayed the horrible living conditions of the camps he visited, again I want more information. I guess I prefer to get my information in words, not pictures. There’s only so much information that can be conveyed via comics and I want more. Joe Sacco cannot draw babies. They looked weird. Baby bodies with adult faces. It was kind of creepy. Also, he drew himself to be the most ugly, hideous-looking person. I Googled him and he’s not that grotesque. I mean, he looks like a normal person so I wonder why he drew himself to look so disturbing? It was so distracting that when I read the panels I kind of cringed when I saw him. I also didn’t really like him. Not that liking the narrator is necessary, but he seemed kind of like a jerk. He ate the refugee’s food (not just nibbled, he ate a lot and even remarked something like he’s not shy guest) and seemed more concerned about getting a good comic strip from his day of meeting with people than what they actually had to say. Maybe I’m being a little harsh or over-thinking some of the panels. He was clearly disturbed by what he saw and I liked how he argued for the Palestinians when talking with the two Israeli women. He did speak with Israelis and try to get them to speak about the conflict. It seems that the people he did speak with were in denial regarding the situation—oh, maybe it’s not so great for the Palestinians, but it’s better now. They also got defensive and proclaimed that they were tired of defending themselves and just wanted peace…but their idea of peace didn’t seem to be all that peaceful for the Palestinians.

This isn’t a political book in that Joe Sacco is championing one view over another. He’s clearly disturbed the Israelis he speaks to, however, and how they don’t seem to want to hear anything about the refugee camps that will bother their comfortable view. While I can understand the Israeli need for security and both sides have committed atrocities, my sympathies still lie with the Palestinian people. Israel is the wealthier (subsidized to a great extent by America, which I think we should stop) and more powerful country. It is still feeding off of a well of sympathy from WW 2 and the Nazi atrocities. To me, that’s the biggest reason why Israel should be kinder to the Palestinians—they know what it is like to be treated so inhumanely and yet they are doing it to another people. They should be ashamed. If Jews and Muslims lived in peace before, why can’t they again? The more the Israelis degrade, humiliate and punish the Palestinians for daring to want to live with dignity on their own land, the more bitter and angry the Palestinians will become. Israel continues to exacerbate the conflict. If there is a first step towards peace to be taken, it should be taken by Israel. They are the more powerful. It’s up to them to make the initial show of mercy, trust and forgiveness.

Palestine: In the Gaza Strip by Joe Sacco is well-drawn and interesting account of his travels in the Palestinian refugee camps. Readers of this review who don’t agree with my Palestinian sympathies, that’s fine, but please don’t write me nasty comments for voicing my opinion. I follow the conflict on the news (NPR and other in-depth sources, not the five minutes of crap the major tv networks call “news”) but I am not an expert. I have not traveled in the region nor have any personal ties to it. So while comments are appreciated, nastiness is not.

[McKenna Deem · Rating 5 out of 5]

With harder subjects coming into focus, Sacco’s artistry and gift for journalism shine.

The second volume in the Palestine story dives further into Sacco’s goal of not telling “the story of politics” but telling the stories of everyday people.

[Susannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just reread volume 8 of this "comic" series on Palestine. What a format to show the horror of life in Gaza--and this was in the mid-nineties, before the sanctions and the invasion.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant first person report of life in Palestine.

[Bira Dantas · Rating 5 out of 5]

No words to describe it. Only one: fantastic.

[Marcus Gasques · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joe Sacco nasceu em Malta em 1960, mora nos EUA e ganhou reconhecimento mundial por combinar quadrinhos e jornalismo com enorme talento. Obra mais conhecida é Palestina. No Brasil, teve diversas edições, como essa da Conrad. Mais recente publicada em 2021 pela editora Veneta.
Sacco passa para o papel suas experiências em territórios ocupados, a área que corresponde à antiga Palestina e hoje encontra-se dividida entre área do estado de Israel, e duas áreas de maioria palestina ocupadas por Israel após a Guerra dos 6 Dias em 1967: Faixa de Gaza e Cisjordânia.
Livros trazem relatos de Sacco de Jerusalém até a Faixa de Gaza, que visitou no começo dos anos 2000. Pela e convivência com moradores e mais de 100 entrevistas, Sacco mostra hábitos e cultura local, do lado palestino e também do israelense.
O autor costuma se desenhar em várias situações: seu auto retrato é quase uma caricatura. E é transparente em suas manifestações. Quando tem medo, diz isso claramente, se retrata olhando para trás quando passa por um lugar suspeito. Também não esconde sua busca por relatos mais trágicos, que podem tornar o sensacionalismo da obra mais atraente para os leitores.
Sacco é facilmente acusado de parcialidade na abordagem desse conflito que já dura mais de 70 anos. Ele pode estar sentado na sala de uma casa palestina, tomando chás com muito açúcar, enquanto ouve relatos de prisões, mortes, oliveiras cortadas e braços quebrados de meninos que atiravam pedras em soldados de Israel. Também pode sentar-se em um café em Israel para conversar com duas jovens do país.
Lendo essas obras, fica evidente que é preciso ter mais informações do outro lado – regra de ouro de jornalismo – antes de abraçar uma convicção. Mas é um bom começo para conhecer o dia a dia de um povo ou nação oprimidos, sejam os moradores de Gorazde sob o cerco Sérvio durante a guerra e limpeza étnica na Bósnia, os intocáveis de um recanto remoto da Índia ou os palestinos. E nisso Joe Sacco é muito bom.
Se o autor não é muito eficiente em manter-se imparcial no que chama de investigações jornalísticas, essa é uma questão que para ele está bem resolvida. Na introdução para o volume Reportagens, publicado pela Companhia das Letras, ele cita a opinião de dois jornalistas consagrados.
Segundo o norte-americano Edward R. Murrow: “Toda pessoa é prisioneira de sua experiência. Ninguém consegue eliminar seus preconceitos — mas tão somente reconhecê-los.”
Já o britânico Robert Fisk afirmou: “Sempre digo que os repórteres devem ser neutra e imparcialmente a favor daqueles que sofrem”.

[Kanwarpal Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This graphic novel is documentation of atrocities Palestinians faced in their day to day life in their own country because of US interference and other Arab countries silence and community difference. After 4 decades of Israel it became a state for Jewish people.

In the early 1990s, Joe Sacco spent about two months visiting Palestine. His narrative and images are eye-opening, brutal, and depressing -- all in one. Life has been hell for these people: they have been uprooted from their ancestral homes, jammed into occupied areas or refugee camps, and subjected to harsh rule, including persecution and torture, by the Israeli Defense Forces.

Novel fails to tell a compelling story. It is too reportorial, with story after story, of young men being jailed, beaten, shot and women being treated as second class citizens. Several reviewers have described Sacco as a documentarian. His attempt to distance himself detracts from the power of the narrative I believe he is trying to promote. Glad to have read it, as this perspective is too infrequently provided in the West. As he was told about the conditions in Palestine camps and homes of Gaza and other Palestine camps. He shows what Israel and Jewish settlers are ignorant about things around them and their views about Palestinians in Tel Aviv, when he met Laura there.

[Rick Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collecting the Palestine strips from issues #6-9, this volume has heavy emphasis on life in the Gaza Strip. Though Sacco's account for life in Gaza takes place before the formal blockade that started in 2007 after Hamas came into power, the Gaza Strip has long endured Israeli occupation. The majority accounts from these later issues in the series take a hard look at the refugee camps, the immense poverty and growing desperation found in the local populace. There is a diverse array of accounts that Sacco interviews, from farmers to refugees to Islamic fundamentalists. It's an eye-opening revelation on the realities of Gaza, and told earnestly since these are all ground-level observations. Sacco indulges in tea endlessly - as is the Palestinian custom for hosts to provide - and the conversations that ensue are blunt. The impact of the First Intifada on Palestine is very much still felt today, and it's sobering to realize how little has changed over decades of war.

[Mika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Le pongo 4 estrellas porque es muy importante visibilizar la perspectiva palestina, la crueldad e inhumanidad con la que son tratados los palestinos en su propia tierra cada dia.
Sin embargo, me causaron rechazo sus dibujos; los chicos y bebes, todos tienen caras de adultos de 40 años. Además, él mismo se muestra como un occidental que no entiende nada por momentos sobre los musulmanes, no le importa comerse toda la comida que le ofrecen los refugiados, y solo quiere "obtener historias" para luego volver a su vida occidental y facturar con la historieta. No sé si todo esto es a propósito o qué, pero me resultó chocante.
El resto, en realidad, me pareció muy fuerte y relevante de poder leer, siendo que esta basado en la primera intifada.

[Joana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such an interesting book!! I really like learning about things I don't know and about history and a different culture. And it works very well that you're seeing everything through the eyes of a western character and the questions that are being asked are mine as well
But really, it was hard to read about what people go through in Gaza and what the war has doneto those people and countries, especially since everything is true
A really important book to read. 100% recommend

[Fatima · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was so sad to read but the truth was good to hear. I loved hearing the Palestinians stories, but the narrator/writer Joe seemed like a dick for about 3/4 of the book. He seemed to be better towards the end. The art was cool. I picked this up and didn't know there was a first one, so I'll have to check that one out too. Overall I think it was a good book to hear about what's going on over there.

[Guilherme Eisfeld · Rating 5 out of 5]

Os quadrinhos jornalísticos de Joe Sacco são viscerais e mostram alguns relatos, imagens e os silêncios da vida (e da morte) dos palestinos. A lama, os ratos, as condições insalubres de um povo cada vez mais engolido pelo sionismo. E pensar que hoje está ainda pior de quando estas histórias foram contadas.

[Rolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even better than the first, more focused on the stories of Palestinians, and when he does focus on himself it is on confronting his own ambivalence as an outside observer who cannot provide the help people most need.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent.

[Larissa Brito · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uma ótima perspectiva acerca do conflito palestino..

[Pedro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Citando um amigo meu, os palestinianos não são um povo, são um exemplo do que significa não vergar a espinha perante fascistas.

[Maria Carolina · Rating 5 out of 5]

complexo como o tema merece.

[Muhammad Rajab Al-mukarrom · Rating 5 out of 5]

great

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have to give 5 stars to all volumes in this series; for the unique graphic journalism, the humanity and emotion that was felt through artwork, the effort taken to compile these stories and the artwork itself.
Would recommend to anyone.

[Krishnendu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume lays bare how Israeli occupation goes beyond territorial control, distressing the average Palestinian life through control over water, agriculture, transport, taxes, employment, hospitals, schools, and even funerals, enforced through pervasive, prying IDF eyes and guns. Some find Joe Sacco's Palestine biased precisely because it is unbiased.

[Felipe Chiaramonte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Obra essencial! Seja pelo seu lado investigativo desprovido de qualquer ideologia ou objetividade jornalisticas encontradas na grande mídia, em um retrato humano e íntimo da nação palestina; seja em sua afirmação dos quadrinhos como uma arte autônoma poderosa, demonstrando vigor estético e narrativo inigualáveis; seja na reafirmação de um olhar ocidental e comum sobre a complexa e distante questão, com Joe Sacco colocando-se em pensamento e imagem dentro da própria obra.

Mesmo tendo este segundo volume sido produzido há 16 anos, junto com "Palestina: Uma Nação Ocupada", o cenário pintado ainda nos é contemporâneo. A situação geopolítica da Palestina mudou, com o Acordo de Paz de Oslo diminuindo a influência israelense, com o Hamas assumido o poder na Faixa de Gaza, com a ocorrência da Segunda Intifada e com a construção do Muro da Cisjordânia tornando-se símbolo da segregação entre dois povos, mas o drama humano gerado pelo atritos entre as duas nações ainda parece distante de um término.

Para quem quiser se aprofundar na discussão, Sacco acabou de lançar aqui no Brasil, pela Quadrinhos na Cia., "Notas Sobre Gaza", que resgata dois episódios ocorridos em 1956 e que poderiam simplesmente ter sido soterrados pela poeira, no fundo dos arquivos gélidos da ONU, não fosse sua audácia e persistência em resgatá-los diretamente dos palestinos que os vivenciaram.

[planet · Rating 5 out of 5]

i saw Joe Sacco speak over the weekend, and was not too impressed with his analysis. i think it lacked some essential complexity and depth that comes with working to end the israeli occupation of palestine. however his work is incredible, and through his brilliant drawings he tells stories that might otherwise not be heard. some things you just can't express with words and after reading his comics I had an idea (a little more than before) of what it means to live under occupation. also! he looks exactly like his drawings of himself. pretty cool.

[Brandon White · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought that this book topped the first volume, and the first volume was EXTREMELY powerful. The narrating the witnessed oppression was starkly clear, and so was Sacco's internal conflict about his own privileges as a tourist and American. The illustrations are beyond powerful and unique, especially as the body language changes as his location changes from Gaza to Jerusalem. This was a library loan, but I'm going to have to buy this book for its literary and historic merit. I plan on reading War Junkies too!

[Vic Heinz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joe Sacco approached dense issues and brutal situations with lightness and humanity. This is Journalism at its highest level, informing and touching the reader.

The characters in this book make us realize how ironically the protagonists of the Palestinian question are ignored, and how the world buys the Western narrative with coldness and laziness to delve deeper into the issue.

The book does not have all the answers what Orthodox readers would look for, but it does show what really matters - the people, much more than the date and names of leaders.

[za · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bercerita soal Palestina. Joe Sacco mengguratkan realita Palestina dalam coretan-coretan gambarnya. Pedih, seram, namun itu semua nyata. Aku memiliki dua jilid, versi terjemahan Bahasa Indonesia. Goenawan Mohammad, hadir memberi pengantar.

[Sepi]

Sounds interesting.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent, moving and politically astute description of the Palestinian conflict.