Joe Sacco's Palestine

Joe Sacco’s Palestine is a journalist’s journey throughout the Palestinian lifestyle, Israel and other facets of the state. Not only does Sacco voluntarily put himself into a dangerous occupied territory but he also assembles himself as a character in his engaging novel. Sacco is collecting the stories of the Palestinians and the destruction that Israelis have brought to their lives and families. Edward Said’s Orientalism provides a parallel to Sacco’s novel, as he conveys a plethora of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the East. Said examines the different aspects of orientalism and gives light to the fact that because orientalism has lasted in our world this long, it has no . Although Said’s Orientalism is similar to Sacco’s
The first intifada was a very powerful and liberating time in Palestine, as the citizens were revolting against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories Israel had control over. After witnessing the horrific tragedy that many Palestinians experience each day from Israel, Sacco interviews a family that has lost their stable income and family heritage. An older man explains “The olive tree is our main source of living…we use the oil for our food and we buy clothes with the oil we sell…a good roman tree can produce 20-30 liters in a year… here we have nothing else but the trees… The Israelis know that an olive tree is the same as our sons…” (Sacco 61-62). Not only did the Israeli soldiers cut down all of the families olive trees leaving them with nothing, the soldiers also forced the older man Sacco interviewed to cut some of his own olive trees down by himself. This incident is extremely powerful and moving, knowing that for a lifetime this man had a stable income and knew that his family would always be taken care of with these trees and now he is being over powered by the soldiers to take that all away. This provides a clear example of the helplessness that Palestinians experience under Israeli occupation of their home
The western influence has burrowed into the lives of the orient and created turmoil between Israelis and Palestinians. The Western support of Israel has only heightened the resentment toward Palestinians. As an Israeli business woman states her Orientalist view toward Palestine “Maybe, if I were a Palestinian I’d be a terrorist, too, to get back my land” (Sacco 254). It is evident that these Western ideas of the said “Terrorists” have spread so rapidly into Israel, when in reality Israel and the aggressive techniques their soldiers are taught to use against the Palestinians are in fact terrorist attacks in