Palestine

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Summary: What is it like being a Palestinian? Why should you care?
Review: Starting with a typical attitude of "Who cares?" Sacco shows us how his visit to the West Bank and Gaza in the early 1990s transformed him completely. Palestinians have much against them in todays world, not least the stereotypes of "supporting terror" etc, etc that the Israeli propaganda machine heaps on them every day. These stereotypes create a formidable barrier between the Palestinian people and Americans. Americans do not feel like they should even pay attention to these "insignificant terrorists" - and that is precisely the goal of the propagandists in the first place: to silence the Palestinians and prevent their very HUMANITY (let alone their message) from being recognized.

Enter Joe Sacco, with master strokes of a cartoonists pencil, he succeeds singlehandedly in shattering those barriers. For the first time in an American puclication, you actually SEE Palestinians as people, you enter their households, you talk to them, you listen to their problems, and you think about it. Well, so what?

If you always thought that the middle east problem is "too complicated" or "has been going on for too long" to be able to understand it, it is time to get out your credit card and BUY THIS BOOK. In the most enjoyable cartoon style that makes it hard for you to let go of the book, you will see things like you've never witnessed them before. This is the raw human story, not the clinically sterilized CNN version of events, or the dry history book polemics. I guarantee that after reading Sacco's Palestine, something will click and you will finally understand what's been going on, more clearly than you ever have before.

WARNING: Not for the faint of heart!

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Summary: A poignant account of what the Palestians have had to endure
Review: Joe Sacco's "Palestine" provides the western world with a powerful account of the Palestinian perspective of their conflict with Israel. Sacco's path takes him through much of the West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem and parts of Israel. He tells the stories of the people he meets and through them paints a picture of the brutality and injustice they endure under the apartheid policies of Israel. With the media coverage of the conflict being what it is, the accessibility of the graphic novel format makes "Palestine" a singularly important work. By communicating the truth, perhaps a lasting solution to this conflict can be found.

Although the journalistic content of "Palestine" is its primary value, it also stands on its own aesthetically. Sacco also writes well and the narrative flows smoothly from one part of his journey to another.

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Summary: A Brilliant, Beautiful One-Sided Polemic .
Review: This book is seriously flawed in that it doesn't show the Israeli side of events, but Joe Sacco openly admits that he's showing a certain point of view from his personal experience and makes no apologies.
As such, I have to say this is a terrific piece of art and opinion-journalism from a major talent. Joe builds a whole world that is utterly foreign and unknown to the American mentality. It's an eye - opener, even knowing that the story is larger than Joe's deft and expert snapshot of these lives. Another part of the story is about poverty, which is endemic in Arab middle east and not always related to the occupation, but there's still a lot going on here.

I think this book actually speaks to the general human condition better than to the Israeli/Palestinian issue. He has no solution to offer here - the situation is systemic and is a proxy for super-regional conflicts elsewhere.
That said, the people and their hopes and dreams and needs and families and are real - whether the oppressor is Israel or the USSR or Germany or Saudi Arabia or any other state. They're just swallowed into events they cannot control.
American are pampered children in this regard. We see Haiti or Rwanda or the Congo on the news for two minutes at a time - we have no conception of how precarious people's lives are in most of the world.
As for the art, he's very stylized. The people are not beautiful and take a little getting used. More interesting to me are other details, such as 'camera' angles, attention to fine detail, continuity, emotional expression and so on. On these measures Joe has a rare gift.
I wish Joe had spent more time with Israelis, but still, everyone should read this book - the world would be a getter place for it.

Rating:
Summary: Buy two, give one away
Review: This new one volume edition of Joe Sacco's Palestine comics evokes my first trip to the occupied Palestinian territories in 1989 a couple of years before Sacco's first visit from 1991-1992. His book faithfully represents the contradictions and striking images of the conflict, and being a graphic novel/comic book renders them visually and powerfully.

I couldn't think of a better medium to explain the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to someone than this book, which stands out as an honest account of one man's attempt to make sense of it all, as well as a work of art in its own right.

Powerfully-told stories are laced with well-researched facts, all couched in Sacco's humanity and disbelief at the people he meets and the events he sees. Particularly chilling is the account of a Palestinian father's torture experience. The book covers a wide variety of other topics, including refugees, Israeli attitudes, life inside prison, and more, introducing these issues (along with the atmosphere of a visit to Palestine) through Sacco's walk through the West Bank and Gaza, talking to people there.

The second half of Sacco's book opens up more of the conflict, this time in the setting of Gaza, but should be considered as indivisible from the first half, as the two halves represent the complete collection of "Palestine" comics originally published as individual magazines, then as a two volume edition.

The visual imagery is almost photographically faithful to the actual landscapes and cityscapes of Palestine, and accounts such as Sacco's taxi ride to Nablus will elicit delighted cries of recognition and wry laughter from those who have visited the country.

This book is a 'must have' that you will definitely not be disappointed with if you're buying them for yourself, and should be considered a necessary part of your standard tools to explain the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict to others. In the absense of a Palestinian "Cry Freedom", this is the next best thing.

Nigel Parry

Rating:
Summary: Terrible writing, lack of facts with reputable sources =CRAP
Review: This book was written by a man who supported deadly terrorist attacks against ISraeli and Jewish civilians. (...) Schoolchildren are taught from an early age to hate anything Jewish or American because it symbolizes what life as a free person would be like.

When books with so few truthful statements like this are made, I can only imagine how many lies about Israeli history are being taught in Universities across the country.

Palestine is not a book based on facts, but rather a mythical history in which the Palestinians claim they were the Phillistines, an Aegean sea-faring people who have long been extinct. The facts and history are out there, (...)and others have compiled a large volume of history and facts about this land that will help combat evil lies such as "Palestine"

I give this book 2 thumbs down and -2 (negative) stars

Rating:
Summary: Spectacular, heartrending, and honest
Review: This book is simply amazing. I'm a second-year college student and it is required reading in my Comp Lit class. It shows you the side of an issue mainstream media doesn't want you to see, and those who refuse to see the side of Palestinians will, even after reading this book, deny the truth. Joe Sacco is brilliant, as his evidence is first hand, his writing realistic, and drawings eye-opening. For anyone who is sick of seeing the issue of Palestine from the view of money hungry media people, this is the book to get. You'll cry. I guarantee, because Sacco will show you the truth as you aren't supposed to see it.

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Summary: Palestinian propaganda as usual...
Review: Typical lies the so-called "Palestinian people" perpetrate as usual. Waste of time & energy. Complete fiction.

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Summary: The Abu Ghraib training manual
Review: If you want to find out where US troops got their gruesome torture methods for Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, it's all in Sacco's book, published in 2002 and based on a trip he took to Gaza and the West Bank in the early 1990s.

It's all there: the arrest and lengthy detainment of innocent people for 'intelligence gathering', putting detainees in hoods for days and weeks at a time, using isolation and terror, threatening death, tying prison in painful positions for days, beatings, humiliation.

Sacco's book documents it all - and it was first worked out
by Israelis for use against Palestians.

The US news media knows this, but they're silent. Why?
Get Sacco's book and educate yourself about what's really going on in the Middle East.

Rating:
Summary: Creating a Humanity Bridge
Review: Joe Sacco is one of those unsung heroes! He is the equivalent of a Mother Theresa. Seldom do we, anymore, find courageous and humane people who try to deliver a message on behalf of the victims.
Watching the nightly news in the USA, you think that the Palestinians are the ones with Fighter Jets and Tanks, and the Israelis are the victims. Never before had a truth been so twisted to where the victim apperas to be the victimizer. If it isn't for Joe, I would've never known that Palestine/Gaza are so underdeveloped, compared to the Tel-Avivs and other Israeli cities, in part thanks to our US Dollars . Who tell us anymore how many dollar$$ are given to Israel every day by the US?!
It is ironic, the same money that isn't available to keep school teachers in Michigan and Los Angeles, is being sent to help Israel pay for their fighter jets and IDF forces to kill the civilans in Palestine/Gaza.!
Joe gave an insight to a problem that is shoved under the rocks. If we, the American Public, knew what is happening in Palestine, I am positive we will try to help the Palestinians. Sacco's work is one step in that direction.

Thanks a million Joe for the great artistic education

Rating:
Summary: A biased and un-academic evaluation of the conflict
Review: The 285 page comic book Palestine by Joe Sacco offers a highly subjective however artistic portrayal of the Palestinian Arab perspective of the conflict that mars the region of Palestine. Its dramatic imagery of the suffering of the Palestinian people evokes one to reevaluate their own understanding of the crisis. On the second page, Sacco immediately establishes the disposition of his text and its bold images by unveiling the underlying argument; that the Israelis are unjustly and sadistically persecuting the Palestinian Arabs. This argument is based upon the premise that Israeli occupation of Palestine is in direct violation of international law (Sacoo vi). One bystander Sacco encountered says, "For the Jews to be treated the way they've been treated and then to treat the Palestinians in that way (Sacco 2)." This is an unambiguous reference to Nazism and to the Holocaust that sets the tone for the imagery that follows portraying the Israelis as heartless, violent and dedicated to committing acts of evil against the Palestinian Arabs. While the conflict in Palestine is perhaps one of the most complicated issues in world politics today, and injustices have been undeniably committed by all parties involved, this contention, that the Israeli attempt to maintain peace and security in a world of violent terrorism can in anyway be related to the Holocaust and the suffering that European Jews endured, is ignorant and most offensive.

In the books preface, Edward Said, notably a Palestinian-born Arab American, attempts to provide what is perhaps the most suited justification for the books overtly one-sided approach to the Israeli and Palestinian crisis. "As we live in a media-saturated world in which a huge preponderance of the world's news images are controlled and diffused by a handful of men sitting in places like London and New York, a stream of comic book images and words, assertively etched, at times grotesquely emphatic and distended to match the extreme situations they depict, provide a remarkable antidote (Sacco iii)." However, in this quote from the books own preface, Edward Said admits the images and text therein are "distended" or inflated. The book also conveniently omits any reference to the vicious terrorism perpetrated by the Palestinian Arabs towards, not only the government of Israel, but to its people and society. Arab uprisings are portrayed within the text as peaceful and democratic demonstrations that are responded to with brutal and even lethal force by the Israeli military. This book excelently portrays the suffering of palestinians, and gives no regard to the Israeli point of view. This text therefore, must be read with the understanding in mind that it is by no means a complete story and is consequently an inequitable depiction of the conflict in Palestine.