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45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A corner stone in comic book journalism., 9 Feb 2005
Bearing in mind that no documentary, especially not on war, is ever going to be objective and thus that any reader's reaction is bound to be subjective, this work is going to stir people's feelings.
Joe Sacco's work is unique in that unlike most journalists, not only has he chosen to use comics/graphic novels as a medium but also he has a much less superficial way of working. This book and the one on Sarajevo offer a real insight on the plight of people's life in a war stricken zone. The fact that the author does not restrict himself to citing historic facts but also goes in to show apparently meaningless details about the local population's daily life only makes the horror of it all more obvious.
Though showing the plight of the Palestinians during the first "Intifada", I do not feel this is antisemitic or whatever. Joe Sacco strives to expose the first victims of any conflict, the civilians, and how that suffering is used by the waring factions on both sides against the opponent.
This might be a "comic book" but it is also a major work showing this medium to be on par with written litterature or films at their best. It is no surprise this book has received so many awards from people who are not in the "comics" business.
A definite must read for anyone interested in good journalism or on this crisis.
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54 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent, thought-provoking and informative, 25 Mar 2004
This is an incredible work of comic journalism, an incredible work of journalism full stop. Sacco spends two months in Israel and the occupied territories, living with the people, hearing their stories, and relaying them to us as directly as he is able.At first I was a little disappointed to hear little from the Israelis, it felt like I might not be getting the whole story, but as Joe himself says, that side of the story is one that is regularly aired in the media. What we get here, as in very few other places, is a real feel of what life is like for a Palestinian, living in a refugee camp. The book is not a political polemic (although it does set out a little-heard of history of Israel from a Palestinian viewpoint), nor does it offer any easy solutions (or even any solutions), but it documents the pain and suffering of a people in a way that you're unlikely to get elsewhere. I strongly recommend anyone who has any interest in the situation in the middle east (which these days, lets face it, should be all of us) to read this book.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
History as lived by real people, 29 July 2006
A truly wonderful book of journalism that shows the reader what it actually means to live, work, struggle, travel, have kids, survive and die as a Palestinian in the West bank and Gaza.
There are some truly heartbreaking stories in here, made even more so for me by the realisation that in years of hearing about the Middle East on the news I had never got any sense of what it means for a people to live their whole lives in these conditions.
Sacco tells his experiences in a self-deprecating way, never holier-than-thou or over-sentimental, always respectful. The artwork is at once simple and full of intricate detail, and beautiful to look at, even when it's subject matter is dark.
Ideally, it should make no difference to those reading this to know that I am of Jewish descent. But I find that for some reason, adding this point sometimes helps people avoid lazily dismissing reviews like this as "anti-Semitic" or somesuch.
Good honest hournalists like Joe Sacco are putting this stuff out there. How many of us choose to read and understand and then act on this kind of reporting (in the West, as much as in the Middle East) is, I think, what will decide how many more people suffer, for how long.
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