Tag Archives: palestinians

Controversy Over Footnotes in Gaza

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We figured that Joe Sacco’s latest graphic noverl Footnotes in Gaza would have it’s detractors.  But the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) has issue has issues not only with Sacco’s work but also the New York Times review of the graphic novel.

CAMERA accuses both Sacco and reviewer Patrick Cockburn of anti-Israel bias and “antagonism towards Israel.”  They go on to question the Times’s stance since it both ok’ed the review and Cockburn’s writing of it.

Sacco has admitted his sympathy for Palestinians and his attempt to show their side of the issue.  CAMERA doesn’t quite make the case of Cockburns’ bias (only poor writing).  CAMERA then goes onto praising the Wall Street Journal’s review as more balanced.

From their website CAMERA is described as:

Founded in 1982, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America is a media-monitoring, research and membership organization devoted to promoting accurate and balanced coverage of Israel and the Middle East. CAMERA fosters rigorous reporting, while educating news consumers about Middle East issues and the role of the media. Because public opinion ultimately shapes public policy, distorted news coverage that misleads the public can be detrimental to sound policymaking. A non-partisan organization, CAMERA takes no position with regard to American or Israeli political issues or with regard to ultimate solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

As we’re fairly new to Sacco’s work we have all of his graphic novels on order or in our hands to read and will be providing our review of both his work on issues in the Middle East as well as his coverage of the Bosnian war.

Footnotes in Gaza

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Maltese-born US journalist Joe Sacco is a graphic novelist we’ve covered in the past.  He covers real world issues in graphic novel form, a new form of gonzo-journalism.

Sacco depicted his travels and encounters with Palestinians and several Israelis in Gaza and the West Bank during the mid-1990s in his appropriately named Palestine.  Footnotes from GazaThe graphic novel won numerous awards.  Sacco has also won international critical acclaim with his Safe Area Goražde, a similarly pictorial account his experiences in the troubled Balkans during the Bosnian conflict.  That also won awards.

The artist’s latest book, Footnotes in Gaza, chronicles two episodes in 1956 in which a U.N. report filed Dec. 15, 1956 says a total of 386 civilians were shot dead by Israeli soldiers.  Sacco said the events have been “virtually airbrushed from history because they have been ignored by the mainstream media.”

Israeli historians dispute the events claiming the totals are exaggerations.  Meir Pail, a leading Israeli military historian and leftist politician has said:

It’s a big exaggeration.  There was never a killing of such a degree. Nobody was murdered. I was there. I don’t know of any massacre.

Sacco’s has been accused of a bias for the Palestinian cause.  Jose Alaniz, from the University of Washington’s Department of Comparative Literature says Sacco uses techniques to manipulate the readers such as angling Israeli soldiers in certain ways in the artwork.

Sacco at least admits he takes sides:

I don’t believe in objectivity as it’s practiced in American journalism. I’m not anti-Israeli … It’s just I very much believe in getting across the Palestinian point of view.

Sacco has his admirers too.  Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman, who directed the 2008 Golden Globe winning cartoon ocumentary Waltz for Bashir.

Whenever I’m asked about animation that influences me, I would say it’s more graphic novels. A tremendous influence on me has been Sacco’s ‘Palestine,’ his work on Bosnia and then Art peigelman’s ‘Maus,'” he said in a telephone interview.

His work quite simply reflects reality.

We’ll have a review of numerous works by Sacco in the upcoming weeks.

Journalist to Take on Immigration Through Comics

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Malta Today has an article about Maltese-born US journalist Joe Sacco.  Sacco is best known for his take on such issues and the Middle East Peace Process and the Bosnian war using the comic book format.  He has turned his attention towards immigration as the topic for an upcoming publication.

In an interview with The Observer (UK), Sacco revealed that he is currently working on “a 48-page comic for the Virginia Quarterly Review about African migrants who attempt to get into Europe via Malta.”

Sacco was born in Hal Kirkop in 1960, but emigrated to Australia as a child and later to the United States.  He is the author of a number of critically acclaimed political comic-books.

Palestine, which was published in 1996, is arguably the most successful of his career. It has been described by leading orientalist Edward Said as:

A political and aesthetic work of extraordinary originality.

Sacco depicted his travels and encounters with Palestinians and several Israelis in Gaza and the West Bank during the mid-1990s.  These interactions make up the strips that is Palestine.  The publication won an American Book Award in 1996 and was serialised as a comic book from 1993 to 2001 and then published in several collections.

Sacco has also won international critical acclaim with his Safe Area Goražde, a similarly pictorial account his experiences in the troubled Balkans during the Bosnian conflict. Safe Area Goražde won the Eisner Award for Best Original Graphic Novel in 2001.

Joe Sacco earned a Guggenheim fellowship for his work, which has helped him finance future projects – including his ongoing work on immigration through Malta, as well as a simultaneous project depicting life in Camden, New Jersey – America’s poorest town.

Comic Journalism has become an increasingly popular form of story telling spanning such topics as travels of the authors, personal biographies and recent events such as the 2008 Presidential election.