It is highly doubtful that anybody’s mind will be changed too dramatically after experiencing Joe Sacco’s War on Gaza, but this is a book filled with the pain of war and the sadness of mad men getting to make mad decisions. Sacco is widely considered the father of graphic reportage since his classic graphic novel Palestine. War on Gaza is in your face: Open it, and the story begins on the inside front cover. Instantly, we are told by Sacco that his initial response to the news of “Hamas’s October 7 raid into Israel was paralysis.” Luckily, he broke through said paralysis and has created a short graphic novel of uncommon strength and vitality.
Buy War on Gaza paperback“A long time ago,” Sacco suggested to a friend that all Palestinians ought to try to be like Gandhi. “As a great mass, they ought to march peacefully to the Israeli barrier enclosing Gaza so the world would laud their non-violence and shame the Israelis into ending their oppression. Sacco’s friend had a very simple response: Joe, he said. They will shoot us. In 2018 and 2019, during the Great March of Return, the Gazans tried Sacco’s suggestion, march peacefully to the gates. They were shot down in droves.
Sacco seems to be at a loss for how to respond except for his powerful art and words. Each page mixes inks and words with great ease and amazing force. Sacco asks the reader, “Is it genocide or is it self-defense? Let’s make everyone happy and say it is both. In that case, we’ll need new terminology. I propose ‘genocidal self-defense.’ That should give both sides something to work with.”
Within these pages, President Biden tells the world there is no “red line” the Israelis may not cross; essentially giving a free pass to genocide. This does not go over well with Biden’s re-election pols/polls. To look better on the national stage, Biden allowed a “few” trucks of aid to enter Gaza. Sacco’s creation and turn-around of War on Gaza was so quick that Vice President Kamala Harris makes but one quick background appearance, and is in no way otherwise mentioned at all. Sacco’s most damning thoughts on the political administration comes on page six as a full spread of a decrepit-looking President Biden (he can hardly open his eyes more than a crack), with a scarlet letter “G” emblazoned on his forehead. Or there is the page with Biden holding the head of a child while a giant, headless baby stands amidst the battlefield jettisoning blood from its neck like a Texan well spurting oil.
Joe Sacco’s War on Gaza, at a mere 32 pages, is crammed with visuals and text covering, and covering very well, every inch of white space. Fantagraphics has produced a fine jeremiad which would make a fascinating, though morbid, coloring book.
