This neat interview with comics journalist Joe Sacco over at the L.A. Weekly has been linked to by various and sundry people, and it’s definitely worth a read. Sacco’s an artist of extraordinary talent and power, and there are passages in both his major journalistic works, Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde, among the most memorable and moving in recent comics history. However, I continue to find his coverage of the battle between Israelis and Palestinians myopically one-sided.
I do agree with Sacco in that the Israeli settlements are a needless, pointless provocation that ought to be stopped right away. There’s simply no sense in hanging the fate of your entire country out to dry, and enabling your enemies to score innumerable propaganda points, on behalf of the group of Israelis who are least interested in secular democracy in the first place.
But Sacco has explicitly drawn the conclusion that the settlements, and the occupation generally, are the be-all end-all of the conflict, which is ludicrous. The fact must be faced that Palestinian civil society is in total nihilistic free fall. It’s often referred to as a death cult, and with good reason: take a look, just by way of a for instance, at this assortment of sermons from various imams, all Palestinian Authority employees. This kind of thinking–and the actions that flow from them, specifically trotting children around in mock suicide-bomber vests and sending teenagers into pizzerias in real ones–is not going to stopped with a two-state solution, or increased negotiations, or anything like that. Dead Jews are the one and only goal, and even if Israel were to be completely wiped off the map, the jihad would go global in a heartbeat. This mindset, murderous to the point of cultural suicide, is far and away the preeminent obstacle to a peaceful settlement in the region right now.
I’m interested to see how Sacco addresses the Islamic death-cult mentality that has so overwhelmed Palestinian society since the start of the intifada in his new book on the region, but if his description of the issues at hand in the above interview is any indication, it will still tell only half the story.
(One of the unfortunate aspects of this situation is that, for me at least, it calls into question the accuracy of his reporting on the Balkan wars. And what with Serbian and Croatian nationalism on the comeback trail, we need journalists we can count on over there.)