(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
“The Palestinian and Israeli people will continue to kill each other in low-level conflicts or with crushing violence – with suicide bombers, attack helicopters and jet bombers – until the central fact – the Israeli occupation – is treated as a matter of international law and basic human rights.”
This is how Joe Sacco concluded in the foreword to the complete edition of his nine comic books entitled Palestine in 2001. They were the result of a two-month investigation in the occupied territories in 1991–1992. Since then, he has returned several times to Israel and Palestine and published several graphic novels, including Footnotes in Gaza (Jonathan Cape Editor, 2009). This is a thorough investigation of the daily life and memory of ordinary people, mostly refugees. Powerless victims of a long and bloody history that is not written by them. With his deep impressions and his many interviews, together with thorough research in UN archives and Israeli archives as a basis for the reports, Sacco has become one of the best experts on the situation of ordinary people in Gaza.
The propaganda and those actions
It is hardly surprising that the massacres committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, and the bloody and disproportionate IsraelThe brutal reprisals that led to the mass displacement of the Gaza Strip's 2 million inhabitants and the near-total destruction of their territory had a profound emotional impact on Joe Sacco. He was stunned, horrified, and paralyzed by these abuses and the swift brutality of the reprisals. It took him several months before he was able to react, even after being asked by one of his friends from Gaza to "make one's voice heard to condemn the crimes that were committed."
Like other Western journalists, Sacco was not allowed to visit Gaza. His book is therefore not an in-depth journalistic reportage, as he has previously made out. Palestine, Sarajevo, Goradze or India. Instead, he has made a quasi-philosophical reflection on the actions of our Western democracies and Israel – those who describe themselves as the only democracy in the Middle East. bag looks at the universal values and the rhetoric they promote. The so-called democratic values that we supposedly share, such as the rule of law, respect for international law, morality, human dignity and freedom of speechone, which these democracies have supposedly defended since the Enlightenment. What he condemns is both double communication and a total contradiction between the 'democratic' propaganda and the actions the democracies exercise.
Joe Sacco was stunned, horrified, and paralyzed by these abuses.
The freedom of expression of those who criticize Israel's disproportionate reprisals against an entire population in response to Hamas'total barbarity, has been and is being gagged and suppressed under the pretext of fueling anti-Semitism. While the voices of the victims are becoming less audible.
Debt hypocrisy is compounded by the press creating 'fake' news, despite the presence of evidence. Sacco cites, as a relevant example, President Biden's statement about the beheading of children by Hamas troops – a fake news that seems intended to dehumanize the Palestinian people and to some extent justify the brutal repression. The rhetoric of moderating the IDF's actions, protecting hospitals and civilians, and providing necessary humanitarian aid stands in stark contrast to the continued flow of weapons designed to destroy the Gaza Strip. They have been deprived of water, electricity, food, and a minimum of sanitation. These contradictions make Israel's democratic allies complicit in what can only be described as war crimes or crimes against humanity. As Sacco points out, "Democracy is no barrier to atrocities," and he continues with a highly problematic question: "Was the Enlightenment buried in the ruins of Gaza, or was the ruins of Gaza the logical conclusion of the Enlightenment?"
The power of persuasion
The message that is developed in War on Gaza, is supported by the power of the lines and by the intelligence of the dramatic composition. This seems liberated from the formal constraints of the usual European comic strip, where text and drawings freely reinforce each other, without ever indulging in explicit morbid violence.
Sacco here reminds me of Francisco Goyas series of 82 copperplate engravings from Napoleon's invasion of Spain (The disasters of war, 1812–1820). Although he does not use animal allegories to convey his message, his sensitivity to the intimate and immediate experience of his victims is similar to that of the French cartoonist Calvos The beast is dead ("The Animal is Dead", 1944–1945), which tells of the barbarity during World War II and the concentration camps in Art Spiegelmans mouse. With his cartoons, Sacco demonstrates the extent to which graphic journalism has earned its charter and can claim, thanks to the time for reflection and recognition it requires, to transcend the immediacy and superficiality of today's modern reporting and social networks. One can rarely avoid the subjectivity of the witness who is emotionally marked by his experiences. But this supposed subjectivity "paradoxically reinforces a more immediate and deeper understanding of the subject," as Art Spiegelman noted.
Two comments
Although I think this book is a true masterpiece, I feel it necessary to make two comments. The first concerns the use of the term 'genocide', which Sacco writes in capital letters on Joe's forehead in one of the illustrations. Biden, referring to Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel "The Scarlet Letter." If, as Sacco believes, one is to respect international law, one should also respect the use of legal terms. genocide received a precise legal definition in 1948, and it was left to the International Criminal Court to decide whether there was a genocide or not.
The second comment concerns how Sacco in War on Gaza and in his interviews draws parallels between Biden's handling of the destruction in Gaza and what Trump could do, as the book was published before the US election. Trump announced in early February 2025, during a joint press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu, that the US will take long-term ownership of the Gaza Strip. He compared it to a scrap heap, to turn it into Middle Eastern Riviera and permanently relocate all the inhabitants, "for their own good," to other countries in the region. Without asking any of the parties for their opinion. But Sacco could not have known that things would get even worse.
Vissol is the director of the Libex Center, Fondation
Giuseppe Di Vagno In Italy. Translated by the MODERN TIMES editor.
