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Comic Review: Palestine (Sacco)

Since I really enjoyed Safe Area Gorazde, I decided to get Joe Sacco's earlier work, Palestine. This covers his time in Palestine and Israel in the early 90's, as the first intifada was fading and the peace process was beginning. It is especially interesting to read now, as the peace process has stalled and violence has begun again. The book consists almost entirely of stories from the Palestinians - time spent in prison camps, difficulties trying to find a job, the frustrations of daily life in a place occupied by an army. It does not shy away from some of the self-inflicted problems the Palestinians face - violence against collaborators, rival political factions, a culture where children easily fall into violent behavior. But it is hard to read this and not think that the Israelis brought a lot of these problems upon themselves because of the lack of compassion they showed to the Palestinians. In any conflict where people have historical grievances there is no way to solve the "who did bad things first" question, but if it is ever going to end someone needs to make the first steps towards reconciliation with acts of kindness and understanding. And there is very little of that to be seen in these stories. It is also eerie to see the images of the Palestinians in the camps, placed there with no charges, being tortured to try to confess some crime, or to see the small indignities like identification cards colored differently to indicate if they have spent time in prison or not, or the different license plates for Israeli settlers, indicating they do not have to stop at the checkpoint. It all reminds me of early stories about Nazi germany, with the segregation of people and the different priviledges based on these classes. I worry that that is overstating the comparison, but the echo of that kind of dehumanization seems to be there. After reading this book I began to lose hope that I would live to see the situation resolved peacefully. The book also did a good job showing the different factions of Palestinian politics, and the conflicts people faced as a result of these divisions. It helped me to view them more as a vibrant, dynamic people, rather than just refugees or terrorists or extremists, but individual people who may get upset if they think people don't understnad how much they value education, or try to start a school for deaf children, or who try to convince the prison guards that they are humans each time a new set of guards shows up every fifteen days.

Compared to Safe Area Gorazde, it is easy to see that Joe Sacco's abilities as a cartoonist and storyteller have improved over time. Here, he spends too much time on his own story, or perhaps he seems like a less thoughtful and more naive person, and it distracts from some of the people's stories that he tells. While he does capture some spectacular moments of quiet thought, these moments are not as plentiful as they were in SAG, where I think he has a more refined skill at depicting these moments and knowing when to let the picture tell the story instead of the words.

And again, after reading one of his works, I feel like I should spend more time learning about the situation beyond the anecdotal level depicted here. But I eagerly await his next work, wherever it has taken him.