War on Gaza
WINNER 2025 Eisner Award for Best Single Issue/One-ShotJoe Sacco is well known as an unflinching chronicler of the injustice inflicted on the Palestinian people (Palestine, 1993; Footnotes in Gaza, 2010). He continues this mission with War on Gaza, a series of graphic commentaries on Israel's rampage that began more than a year ago and continues relentlessly today.
Published in installments on The Comics Journal's website, War on Gaza is a series of comics and single-panel illustrations that lay bare the naked immorality of the "war" itself and its dire and tragic consequences. Employing his trademark combination of honesty, compassion, and dark humor, Sacco's War on Gaza is an uncompromising critique of Israel's genocide and the complicity of President Joe Biden and the United States.
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Community Reviews
Not up to his usual level. I did rate his Palestine comic book very highly. It was extremely biased anti-Israel of course, but it was real people he interviewed. Here he starts out attacking Biden and Netanyahu and I wonder what the point is? I can't quite understand it. He is claiming the 7 October attack was a bad thing ... but. He does the but thing then spins it around talking about how they had no other choice and how now that it's done Biden is evil for delivering weapons to Israel. Making Biden out to be this huge monster. If you have a need to say "mass genocide attack happened ... but" then don't include it at all unless you spend more than 3 panels going over it. We don't know what happened and he doesn't even bring up hostages or what Hamas demands for the hostages. Did he actually study anything prior to writing this? What is his solution for the hostage situation? We don't know.
Post the book Biden dropped out of the president race and Kamala took his place automatically with no candidate election. Giving her zero time to sell herself. And making Democrats angry about not having a choice.
I recall how progressives hated Kamala and refused to vote for her because of the Gaza issue. She's married to a Jewish man and said Biden's politics were good. So many young progressive people didn't vote and Trump won. Is Trump better than Biden on Israel in their eyes? His daughter is married to a Jew and she converted and Trump is right-wing so he has a great relationship with Israel's leader, Netanyahu. The election of Trump means the books feels dated just a year later. Trump is doing exactly the same thing yet with greater conviction. Sacco shows the 2 candidates before the election - when Biden was still in the run. Claiming we must choose the lesser of the 2 evils. I initially assumed it's Trump? Either way it's exactly these sort of propaganda campaigns that lost Democrats votes. Do you think Trump would have reacted differently? Obama? Bush? Clinton? They all would have done the same thing you can read about their Israel politics and Sacco should know this as he wrote his bestseller during Clinton. He wrote about how Clinton bombed Bosnia and he was traveling the areas right after. Even visited the Bosnian Serb genocidal leader, Radovan Karadžić, to interview him while he was hiding from the Hague. Never once did he treat him how he treats Biden here. Why? Bosnian Serbs personally, with their own hands, committed genocide. He should be able to think back and understand the strong Israel-USA relationship yet he doesn't. Last time it was very weak was during FDR where anti-Semitism ruled USA before Hitler put a stop to such thinking in the open. That's before Israel was a state. All future presidents supported Israel in some way or just ignored it. Even Obama kept calling Israel out then ended up supporting it. Because anything else is politically stupid it's by far the best friend USA has in the Middle East. Instead he brings up poets and ancient figures. Why is Rome more relevant than Israel's history? Clinton is not even mentioned which is a shame as Oslo Accords would be useful to bring up as it lead to the creation of Gaza as their own state. But this book is not trying to solve or describe anything.
Joe Sacco calls the Gaza war a genocide .. and a war. We should look into how to make it hit Hamas and avoid civilians. For Sacco the word Hamas doesn't really exist. He sees it as Palestine and that's how he is misguided. Hamas is the current leadership and the terrorist group supported in the West Bank too. You need to look into Hamas and how they work and what alternatives may be there for leadership. Then look into how to rescue Israeli hostages or get them back. Then look into how to kill every single Hamas member. Then look into how to avoid any civilian harm. Yet no such concepts are explored here. If you don't even mention Hamas and their history and politics then don't try to preach us about the war.
The thing is all his books are biased against USA and Israel that's just what he believes so it always is visible. When he interviews anyone from Israel he right away writes "... but I didn't believe him" in all his former books. But he wrote those books from West Bank and Gaza so at least we had voices in there. This one he writes from USA talking about how he feels about the Gaza war. One could hope it's something deep as he has been in Gaza many times. But this is exactly the same as you may hear in any pro Hamas or anti-Israel Youtube video. You wonder why he doesn't have anything deeper to say, but maybe Sacco is just not deep. If so then why even try your hand at moral philosophy?
Firstly, he needed to explore the "rights" of Palestinians. He assumes they are fighting to not live in an occupied state or something as Israel closed their borders. But Israel allowed them self-government ship and then closed the border when Hamas took power and made it their main goal to kill anyone living in Israel, even Muslim Arabs. Apartheid politics in Gaza kicked out all Jews and PA that lost the election meaning Hamas had 100% control and support from civilian West Bank people that also hate Jews and Israelis. So you go into the rights the people have. Then go over their leadership. Go over what plans they have. Skipping all this altogether makes it feel hollow. I don't even think the occupied word is simple to apply here as it's extremely misleading. It's true Gaza is occupied. But the area is taken hostage by a terrorist group so it's rather a closing of their borders. They still lived a fine enough lifestyle with zero wars before Hamas attacked Israel. Israel gave them food, water, electricity. And they allowed Gaza to build their own nation. Gazans never wanted it whatsoever. They had the open borders, but by attacking Israel 1 year after the founding those borders were shut close. And Egypt could open their border to them yet doesn't as they know what Hamas is too.
I have read most of his comic books. Palestine was good, Footnotes in Gaza a bit of a miss, but still a fine read. Journalism showed his very best Palestine writing. The only story where he interviewed military leadership in Israel. He was of course constantly calling them liars, but at least he tried to be a legit journalist. Safe Area, The Fixer, and his other Bosnia stories are strong. But in ALL these stories he went to the place and interviewed people. He didn't sit at home and then used ancient philosophy to loosely allude to Biden being the devil himself. At least explain the conflict. His moral preaching feels hollow as we already know he thinks. All of this as it's extremely clear in all his other books that are way higher quality. So just reprint your old books if you truly have nothing new to say.
Post the book Biden dropped out of the president race and Kamala took his place automatically with no candidate election. Giving her zero time to sell herself. And making Democrats angry about not having a choice.
I recall how progressives hated Kamala and refused to vote for her because of the Gaza issue. She's married to a Jewish man and said Biden's politics were good. So many young progressive people didn't vote and Trump won. Is Trump better than Biden on Israel in their eyes? His daughter is married to a Jew and she converted and Trump is right-wing so he has a great relationship with Israel's leader, Netanyahu. The election of Trump means the books feels dated just a year later. Trump is doing exactly the same thing yet with greater conviction. Sacco shows the 2 candidates before the election - when Biden was still in the run. Claiming we must choose the lesser of the 2 evils. I initially assumed it's Trump? Either way it's exactly these sort of propaganda campaigns that lost Democrats votes. Do you think Trump would have reacted differently? Obama? Bush? Clinton? They all would have done the same thing you can read about their Israel politics and Sacco should know this as he wrote his bestseller during Clinton. He wrote about how Clinton bombed Bosnia and he was traveling the areas right after. Even visited the Bosnian Serb genocidal leader, Radovan Karadžić, to interview him while he was hiding from the Hague. Never once did he treat him how he treats Biden here. Why? Bosnian Serbs personally, with their own hands, committed genocide. He should be able to think back and understand the strong Israel-USA relationship yet he doesn't. Last time it was very weak was during FDR where anti-Semitism ruled USA before Hitler put a stop to such thinking in the open. That's before Israel was a state. All future presidents supported Israel in some way or just ignored it. Even Obama kept calling Israel out then ended up supporting it. Because anything else is politically stupid it's by far the best friend USA has in the Middle East. Instead he brings up poets and ancient figures. Why is Rome more relevant than Israel's history? Clinton is not even mentioned which is a shame as Oslo Accords would be useful to bring up as it lead to the creation of Gaza as their own state. But this book is not trying to solve or describe anything.
Joe Sacco calls the Gaza war a genocide .. and a war. We should look into how to make it hit Hamas and avoid civilians. For Sacco the word Hamas doesn't really exist. He sees it as Palestine and that's how he is misguided. Hamas is the current leadership and the terrorist group supported in the West Bank too. You need to look into Hamas and how they work and what alternatives may be there for leadership. Then look into how to rescue Israeli hostages or get them back. Then look into how to kill every single Hamas member. Then look into how to avoid any civilian harm. Yet no such concepts are explored here. If you don't even mention Hamas and their history and politics then don't try to preach us about the war.
The thing is all his books are biased against USA and Israel that's just what he believes so it always is visible. When he interviews anyone from Israel he right away writes "... but I didn't believe him" in all his former books. But he wrote those books from West Bank and Gaza so at least we had voices in there. This one he writes from USA talking about how he feels about the Gaza war. One could hope it's something deep as he has been in Gaza many times. But this is exactly the same as you may hear in any pro Hamas or anti-Israel Youtube video. You wonder why he doesn't have anything deeper to say, but maybe Sacco is just not deep. If so then why even try your hand at moral philosophy?
Firstly, he needed to explore the "rights" of Palestinians. He assumes they are fighting to not live in an occupied state or something as Israel closed their borders. But Israel allowed them self-government ship and then closed the border when Hamas took power and made it their main goal to kill anyone living in Israel, even Muslim Arabs. Apartheid politics in Gaza kicked out all Jews and PA that lost the election meaning Hamas had 100% control and support from civilian West Bank people that also hate Jews and Israelis. So you go into the rights the people have. Then go over their leadership. Go over what plans they have. Skipping all this altogether makes it feel hollow. I don't even think the occupied word is simple to apply here as it's extremely misleading. It's true Gaza is occupied. But the area is taken hostage by a terrorist group so it's rather a closing of their borders. They still lived a fine enough lifestyle with zero wars before Hamas attacked Israel. Israel gave them food, water, electricity. And they allowed Gaza to build their own nation. Gazans never wanted it whatsoever. They had the open borders, but by attacking Israel 1 year after the founding those borders were shut close. And Egypt could open their border to them yet doesn't as they know what Hamas is too.
I have read most of his comic books. Palestine was good, Footnotes in Gaza a bit of a miss, but still a fine read. Journalism showed his very best Palestine writing. The only story where he interviewed military leadership in Israel. He was of course constantly calling them liars, but at least he tried to be a legit journalist. Safe Area, The Fixer, and his other Bosnia stories are strong. But in ALL these stories he went to the place and interviewed people. He didn't sit at home and then used ancient philosophy to loosely allude to Biden being the devil himself. At least explain the conflict. His moral preaching feels hollow as we already know he thinks. All of this as it's extremely clear in all his other books that are way higher quality. So just reprint your old books if you truly have nothing new to say.
