Palestine (graphic novel)
"Palestine" is a graphic novel by Joe Sacco that combines elements of journalism and storytelling to document the experiences of Palestinians during the first Intifada in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Drawing on his travels through the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Sacco interviews individuals affected by Israeli occupation, weaving their narratives into the fabric of the graphic novel. The work is characterized by its unique artistic style, which employs exaggerated caricatures to evoke emotions and convey the gravity of the situation, while also utilizing a journalistic approach that allows for the inclusion of personal reflections and contextual history.
The structure of "Palestine" is episodic, with chapters organized around common themes, such as land confiscation, imprisonment, and the daily humiliations faced by Palestinians. It serves as a counternarrative to dominant historical accounts, emphasizing the subjective nature of history and showcasing the resilience of the Palestinian people. The novel's impact is significant, inspiring a new generation of comics artists in the Arab world and contributing to conversations about marginalized narratives within the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Despite mixed receptions, particularly from pro-Israel critics, "Palestine" has found recognition in academic circles and mainstream media, solidifying Sacco's position as a pioneering figure in comics journalism.
Palestine (graphic novel)
AUTHOR: Sacco, Joe
ARTIST: Joe Sacco (illustrator)
PUBLISHER: Fantagraphics Books
FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 1993-1995
FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1994, 1996
Publication History
Joe Sacco is a graphic novelist who began his career as a traditional journalist. His comics belong to a genre of graphic novels called “comics journalism” that produces reportage-style story lines in graphic novel formats. After graduating from college, Sacco decided to combine his talent for drawing comics with journalism. Eventually, he established a working relationship with Fantagraphics Books, which published his autobiographical Yahoo (1988-1992).
Sacco then traveled to the Middle East, where he spent the majority of his time in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, after which he wrote and published Palestine. Palestine was first published serially from 1993 to 1995 in nine issues that range in length from twenty-four to thirty-two pages. In 1994, Palestine, issues1-5, were collected as Palestine: A Nation Occupied. The remaining four issues were collected as Palestine: In the Gaza Strip (1996). In 2001, the entire series was collected into a single volume that includes an introduction by literary critic and Palestinian advocate Edward W. Said. A special hardcover edition was issued in 2007, which retains Said’s contribution and has an additional section by Sacco that includes original photographs and sketches.
Plot
During the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, the first Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, dominated the headlines from the Middle East. Sacco traveled to the area to witness events firsthand and interview Palestinians affected by Israeli occupation. The collection of his impressions and the stories of the Palestinians he interviewed compose the graphic novel.
Palestine chronicles Sacco’s travels from Cairo into the West Bank, followed by an excursion to the Gaza Strip, back to the West Bank, and then into Israel. The first chapter develops the character of “Joe Sacco” and establishes him as an outsider with limited perspective on the conflict. While situating his character in the region, he fills in the background of the conflict. In chapter 2, he continues to develop this history, using the layout of a history textbook, told from the Palestinian perspective.
Next, Sacco recounts the stories of his interviewees. While the structure is episodic, Sacco manages to arrange the chapters around common themes. The theme that emerges from chapter 3 is Israeli confiscation of Palestinian territory, specifically the seizure of olive trees in the name of security.
Chapter 4 focuses on the conditions of imprisonment via the corroborated testimony of men imprisoned in the infamous Ansar III prison. Instead of reporting only the torture they withstood, he transcribes a functioning social system whereby inmates take care of one another and educate each other about Palestinian issues. Different perspectives of imprisonment are related in the sections entitled “Moderate Pressure” and “The Tough and the Dead,” which is about an imprisoned woman. Thoughtfully, Sacco inserts a Palestinian joke for comic relief.
The next chapter focuses on the daily humiliation and fears felt by Palestinians instilled by the use of percussion bombs, tear gas, and inflexible curfews. In a poignant section, Palestinians in Hebron recount an attack by Israeli settlers, which is juxtaposed with newspaper clippings that frame the Palestinians as aggressors.
Sacco’s trip to Gaza is represented in chapters 6-8. He demonstrates how the law, occupation, and Palestinian resistance movements have robbed a generation of their childhood, fueling the first Intifada. Through the help of a translator, Sacco attempts to reconstruct the early days of the uprising and learns about more daily atrocities that occur in Gaza, mirroring those in the West Bank.
The final chapter is set in Jerusalem again, where Sacco is in the company of two female Israeli tourists who question him about his one-sided journey into history. They encourage him to visit Tel Aviv, which he does. However, this trip only cements his desire to provide a counternarrative centered on the Palestinians’ experiences, accounts, and oral history.
Characters
•Joe Sacco, the protagonist, is a short Maltese American with glasses. He is a reporter traveling throughout Palestine, collecting stories of the Israeli occupation. He is a complicated character, appearing sympathetic to the Palestinian people but still wanting to hear the next violent story.
•Ghassan, a Palestinian man in his thirties and a father, is accused of belonging to an illegal organization, detained without evidence, and tortured over the course of more than two weeks. Sacco conveys basic Israeli torture tactics through the Ghassan episode.
•Ammar is a slightly overweight Palestinian man with a weak chin and a scruffy beard. He lives in the Nuseirat refugee camp and does not have a job. He acts as one of Sacco’s translators.
•Sameh is a slightly balding Palestinian man in his late thirties. He is from the Jabalia refugee camp and works in Gaza with disabled children. He acts as one of Sacco’s translators. Unlike other translators, he seems to understand the visual component that Sacco wants to capture and goes out of his way to provide Sacco with every opportunity to experience and record it.
•Naomi is an Israeli tourist with blond, medium-length hair who is always shown wearing sunglasses. She meets Sacco, refuses to venture into the Arab market of the old city with him, and eventually invites him to Tel Aviv to experience the Israeli side of things.
•Paula, another Israeli, is Naomi’s friend. She has shoulder-length brown hair. She agrees to walk through the streets of the old city in the Arab market but appears to be paranoid the whole time.
Artistic Style
Sacco’s Palestine uses a graphic reportage style that exaggerates emotions through its caricatures, allowing readers to sympathize with the masses, who are meticulously drawn as distinct individuals. There are no thought bubbles; instead, Sacco’s thoughts are included in the captions. They move freely through the panels and are not tethered to the Sacco character. When action is more chaotic, the caption boxes move in a correspondingly chaotic arabesque. Dialogue takes place in speech balloons. Palestinian narrators are afforded the same representation; their thoughts and stories become the captions, and only their dialogue is depicted with balloons.
Putting oral accounts and histories into captions gives them more authority. Similarly, in chapter 2, Sacco uses the traditional layout of a textbook, placing the narration in columns and embedding pictures into the format. His choice of layout is used to place this counternarrative on equal footing with the more prevalent Israeli historiography.
In a memorable section in chapter 4, Sacco recounts the story of Ghassan being held without evidence and being tortured during his detention. The number of panels per page gives the reader a sense of expanding and unending time associated with torture. The story begins with three panels, the next page to six panels, then to nine, and finally to twenty. As the panels increase, the prisoner is more confined and the divisions between the panels begin to take on the look and feel like prison bars.
Themes
Palestine is about Israeli occupation and its impact on Palestinians. It is a history of the Palestinian refugees from their own point of view. In a journalistic style, Sacco compiles numerous accounts of displacement, imprisonment, enforced curfew, confiscation, demolition, wounding, and killing with little character development. This accumulation of evidence has two effects: First, it validates the stories; second, it numbs the reader to the violence being presented until the stories begin to sound the same, mirroring the Palestinians’ own sense of their surrounding violence. Marketplace percussion bombs exploding are part of day-to-day existence. A family member being imprisoned is common.
The reliability of sources and the framing of stories are constantly brought to the fore. Sacco’s Palestine is a counternarrative of Palestinian history. When Sacco hears about the attack in Hebron that Palestinians contend was instigated by Israeli settlers, he sees a different narrative in the newspapers. Historical accounts are subjective but are often treated as objective truth. Hence, Sacco includes his own motivations in the text, allowing readers to understand the framing of the novel.
Violent resistance to occupation is another theme better understood through Sacco’s attempts to convey the daily humiliation experienced by generations of Palestinians. In the sections set in Gaza, Sacco illustrates the confinement of Gaza and how all activities there are framed through the lens of political resistance. In the final pages, a young Palestinian is forced to stand in the rain while he is interrogated by Israeli soldiers. In this one story, Sacco encapsulates the day-to-day humiliation of Palestinians.
Impact
Joe Sacco is one of the best-known comics journalists. As in New Journalism, the reporter becomes part of the story. Sacco expands the intrusion of the reporter’s thoughts and observations and provides metacommentary on his predilection for being a newshound. Possible influences on his work are Art Spiegelman’s biographical Maus (1980-1991) series and the work of Robert Crumb and Harvey Pekar, whose autobiographical styles depict real quotidian life, boredom included. Like Maus, Sacco’s Palestine uses comics to illustrate the unseen and the unimaginable. He renders images out of memories and accounts that have eluded camera lenses.
Sacco’s graphic novel demonstrates how comics add a dimension of experience that is difficult to articulate. Exaggerated features capture and force emotions on readers in ways that real photos sometimes fail to do. Because of this added dimension, Sacco’s work has been included in mainstream media, in publications such as The Guardian and Harper’s.
Because the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a controversial political topic, Palestine’s reception was mixed. Within the pro-Israel camp, the novel was dismissed as unbalanced and slanderous. In many Near Eastern and Middle Eastern studies departments, Edward Said’s enthusiasm for Palestine opened up a space for it in the curriculum, which in turn opened the door for other forms of popular culture that touch on the stories of marginalized peoples.
While single-panel comics and strips have long been popular in the Arabic-speaking world, the graphic novel has not found a foothold in the region. The publication of Palestine inspired many young artists. In 2008, Magdy El-Shafee published Metro in Egypt, which has been considered the first adult graphic novel in Arabic. It was confiscated and banned by the administration of then-president Hosni Mubarak. In more liberal Lebanon, the creation of Samandal, a journal dedicated to the publication of multilingual comics, has provided many up-and-coming artists space to present their comics, many of whom echo Sacco’s autobiographical reportage style.
Further Reading
Pekar, Harvey, Heather Roberson, and Ed Piskor. Macedonia (2007).
Sacco, Joe. The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo (2003).
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Footnotes in Gaza (2009).
Bibliography
Marshall, Monica. Joe Sacco. New York: Rosen, 2005.
Rosenblatt, Adam, and Andrea A. Lunsford. “Critique, Caricature, and Compulsion in Joe Sacco’s Comics Journalism.” In The Rise of the American Comics Artist: Creators and Contexts, edited by Paul Williams and James Lyons. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2010.
Versaci, Rocco. “The ‘New Journalism’ Revisited: Comics Versus Reportage.” In This Book Contains Graphic Language: Comics as Literature. New York: Continuum, 2007.
Woo, Benjamin. “Reconsidering Comics Journalism: Information and Experience in Joe Sacco’s Palestine.” In The Rise and Reason of Comics and Graphic Literature: Critical Essays on the Form, edited by Joyce Goggin and Dan Hassler-Forest. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2010.