The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in the Graphic Novels of Joe Sacco

Categories: Novel

The Israeli-Palestinian clash faces the continuous battle among Israelis and Palestinians that started in the early 20th century. The assertion is wide-going and still present today. The savagery resulting from the conflict has incited global activities, just as other security and human rights concerns, both inside and between the two sides. As well, the brutality has restrained of tourism in the area, which is brimming with noteworthy and strict destinations that are important to numerous individuals around the world. Israel is the world's only Jewish state, found only east of the Mediterranean Sea.

Palestinians, the Arab population that hails from the land Israel currently controls, allude to the region as Palestine, and need to build up a state by that name on all or part of similar land. The Israeli-Palestinian clash is over who gets what land and how it's controlled. Joe Sacco's novel “Palestine” secured the impact of Palestine, Israel, consecrated spot's uprising. Sacco's symbol is an illustrator who went through Israel and the occupied territories to challenge the picture that speak to the Israeli-Palestinian clash.

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The working techniques that he used to compose this novel, he used to converse with individuals of various sorts in order to get the real picture of the situation. He talked with individuals who have experienced certain encounters to show us the reality, and the life of war under the occupation. Sacco novel tells about the different refugee camps and towns around Palestine that he attempts to assemble information, stories and pictures that fabricate this novel.

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The novel indicates the struggles that people went through. Many themes are represented in the novel, however, the paper main focus themes will be violence, torture and injustice. In addition, I will take a look on how Sacco examines Middle Eastern women and how they represented in different encounters.

We constantly hear about the issues that are happening in the Middle East through social media. Many people got murdered by torture. In the novel “Palestine” Sacco stated that “with war imminent, Ben-Gurion had no illusions about spiriting or including the Palestinians aways. “In each attack,” he wrote, “a decisive blow should be struck, resulting in the destruction of homes and the expulsion of the population” When that was basically accomplished he told an advisor, “Palestinian Arabs have only one role left to flee.” (Sacco: 2001: 42). This demonstrates people are represented as nothing, at this point when the individuals become outsiders in their own property or when the intensity of the weapon lays more accentuation on individuals' brains than the intensity of reason, empathetic, and morality. Human beings represented as nothing for both sides of the conflict. Morality has a long way to be clear and present; it will take a long time for being reached, and people will face many struggles to achieve it; if they get the change.

The novel represented the struggles and violence that people faced. Sacco displays in the novel many violent images. Looking at the refugee campus, Sacco represented it that war is constantly a pursuit for equity or from brutality. He stated “it was more comfortable to think of refugees as some regrettable consequence of war.” (Sacoo: 2001: 42). This means that no matter what happens, the situation always end up by causing harm to the people and caused many of them to lose their lives and homes. In addition, the effects of war are disregarded, and it is overlooked that individuals with real lives were included. These people are not robots or apparitions. They are human and have their own life to live. However, for some individuals engaged in a war, there is this inclination of lost time. It isn't just the loss of life, but the loss of their time that they should spend it with their families and friends. War upsets these men's psyches, and it appears that for some, on the off chance that they imagine that these warriors are problems less than in their eyes they really are.

In the novel Sacco tried to convey to us the reality that people are living in. The beginning of a chapter three Sacco and Saburo meandering into a dissent in East Jerusalem, they snap into writer mode. The Palestinian group drones, "PLO! Israel, no!" (Sacco: 2001: 56) and fight the settlements. They took images of the beating that people face from the police. The chapter emphasizes the violence that people got to face; “I got this picture of police dragging a woman.” (Sacoo: 2001: 57). This demonstrated that women got to face attacks and discrimination from the police. Moreover, women and children were abused and are not living in a secure place. In addition, Sacco and Saburo drive out to a Palestinian house encompassed by annihilated trees where women reveals to them how the Israeli used their powers to injure her six olive trees. The woman stated.“the next day they came back and cut my six olives trees...” The police asked her “Why are you crying?” she responded.“because you are cutting my trees”, police responded “That’s nothing.” (Sacco: 2001: 60). This illustrated the police’s lack of interest in how this woman felt at that moment. Also the sentence “that’s nothing” demonstrated that there are many difficulties and conflicts Palestine people are going to face, and the Israelis will not content themselves with that. Meantime, Sacco illustrated the women did not stop crying and worried about their child. Sacco asked the women “where your children with you when the soldiers cut your trees,” she stated. “the youngest I would not let my oldest boy out of the house... because a month ago he was beaten by soldiers.” This means these people always faced violently and discriminations, they live a miserable life. Also, how easy for Israel to force and punish the Palestine people without thinking that they are human like them, and they should have the rights to live free not under attack and violent.

In terms of injustice and torture themes, in a chapter, four sections “Moderate Pressure” represented the story of man called Ghassan who was blamed for an association with an illicit group that couldn't be demonstrated. Ghassan had to stand or sit in specific situations for quite a long time. He was beaten, denied of rest, and limited from restorative consideration that he needed. Ghassan stated, “I got up. I found them inside the house. About 12 to 15 soldiers and policemen and two security men.”they blindfolded me, tied my hands with plastics...” (Sacco: 2001: 102) He treated unjustly, and Israeli government kept on implementing extreme and biased confinements on Palestinians' human rights. Ghassan went to the court, and the police were trying to find evidence that condemn him. The police said.“We found documents in his home. He is phoning the terrorist leadership abroad, we found this list of phone numbers.” Ghassan responded, “this is the number of my brother-in-law, other relatives of my wife … where I work... A hospital number of my relatives.” (Sacoo: 2001: 102-107). This shows people live under control they feel unsafe in their homes, everything they do; they get punished for it; even if they did not commit any crime. Israel keeps up settled in prejudicial frameworks that makes Palestine individuals live in fear. Likewise, they include deliberate rights abuses, including aggregate discipline, routine use deadly power, and delayed authoritative confinement without charge or preliminary for hundreds. The novel represented many pictures within Ghassan story that demonstrates how Ghassan suffered and faced violently, brutality and injustice.

While Sacco focused on showing the realistic picture of how the Palestine people were suffering, he also illustrated in chapter five how Middle Eastern women classified into different categories. Sacco examined different women; One of the women from the Federation discusses freeing Arabic ladies through the crucial ladies' privileges brought forward by Islam. She stated. “We are an Arabic, middle eastern society. There are traditional roles — an old picture of women that we want to change, but we face obstacles from men and women — some women refuse change.” (Sacoo: 2001: 134) This means that women had a hard time freeing themselves and assert their right, they faced many challenges from their man. Not only that some women like them refused to change and they preferred living under control. Another woman talked about the struggles and violence that women face from their husband by stated; “Hamas followers began threatening women and sometimes beating them for going outside without hijab” (Sacco: 2001: 138). This focuses to the challenges in accommodating Islam and women's privileges by alluding to give the rights to the men to beat their wife. In terms of these two women perspective, we can see there is something in common between both of them. They both are facing challenges as being a feminist that lives in the middle region. We can see that the idea of granting women their rights and treat them as a human were excluded during that time.

In addition, Sacco presented Wester perspective to the Eastern women by looking at the piece that pursues 'Women': 'Hijab'. This session talks about the ideal and allegory for East versus West subject. We see Sacco's symbol back in the focal point of consideration, encompassed by many hidden ladies, all portrayed with their backs towards him (Sacco: 2001: 137). Sacco believed there is a story behind each woman that wearing the veil, even though all of them seem to be the same. Though the cliche Western women show much skin and change her hairstyle now and then, these ladies all appear to have the equivalent physical appearance. For a Westerner, this effectively infers their uniqueness and essential humankind are secured and has even disappeared too. “Let’s face it; I am from, the West, I’ve seen plenty of legs, orange hair, too, and other fashion statements … but this getup, it’s nondescript, I blank out most of all the women who wear it, they’re just shaped to me, ciphers like pigeons moving along the sidewalk …” (Sacco: 2001: 137). This demonstrated the thoughts of biases and generalizations between Western women and Eastern women.

In Hence, I discovered Sacco's novel pleasant to read. At the point when I got surprised when I read this novel even though I am from the Middle East region. I have never known totally what the fight in Palestine/Israel was about. I knew it was a fight about land, but I never thought about the conditions, unrest and the struggles that people face. However, Sacco succeeds of representing these wellsprings of information that aided us to get the phenomenal picture of Palestinian life. The pictures represented in the novel were a significant resource and have a great deal of analyzing the novel. Also, Sacco played with various styles as well, as indicated to send the message and the feeling that he needed to pass. In addition, he worked superbly figuring out how to move recalls from the observer to the peruser. His ability to perform with the dialects, speaking to that culture and reflecting his own character all add to make an incredible novel. His significant achievement was his ability in deciphering the effect of war and occupation starting with one culture then into the next. Finally, as a generation that we never experienced war before; this novel has it’s significant that different methods are tended to altogether keep this slightly memory alive. Not only for exclusively people who got killed and victim, but also to have an idea about the past and what represents today.

Work Citation

Beauchamp, Z (2018). What are Israel and Palestine? Why are they fighting? Retrieved 4 November 2019, from https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080002/israel-palestine-conflict-basics
Palestine by Joe Sacco: A Review - Sample Literature Essay. (2019). Retrieved 4 November 2019, from https://writingleader.com/sample-essays/literature/palestine-by-joe-sacco-a-review
Sacco, J., Said, E. W., Sacco, J., & Sacco, J (2001). Palestine.
Unnecessary And Evil To The Palestinians essay help. Retrieved 4 November 2019, from https://essaypride.com/ex/unnecessary-and-evil-to-the-palestinians-2aab3
Van Kerckem, D (2013). Colliding Memories: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in the Graphic Novels of Joe Sacco. Retrieved 4 November 2019, from https://lib.ugent.be/fulltxt/RUG01/002/060/430/RUG01-002060430_2013_0001_AC.pdf

Updated: Apr 19, 2023
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The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in the Graphic Novels of Joe Sacco. (2020, Sep 23). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-in-the-graphic-novels-of-joe-sacco-essay

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in the Graphic Novels of Joe Sacco essay
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