On the evening of November 5 and beyond, while the world discovers who, Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, will move into the White House in January 2025, Joe Sacco will not be comforting himself in front of his television. Because whatever the outcome, it won’t change anything that keeps him awake: the United States’ continued support for Israel in the year-long war in Gaza.
Joe Sacco is a not-so-peaceful American, plagued by conflict and outbreaks of violence on both sides of the globe, when so many of his countrymen are disinterested. When we meet him at the end of September in the Paris offices of Gallimard, the parent company of his Futuropolis publishing house, he has just stepped off the plane, exhausted from the long journey from Portland (Oregon, on the West Coast) to attend the Festival America, in Vincennes (Val-de-Marne), and participate in the launch of his new graphic work. His trunk is ridiculously small and his shirt has no creases. Before answering us, he asks us only one thing: five minutes to brush his teeth. The man is organized, focused and hardworking. His stay in France will be productive from the first to the last day.
Israel had not yet started hostilities in Lebanon, but Israeli bombs continued to fall on the Palestinian coastal strip, killing more than 41,000 people in less than a year, according to the Hamas Health Ministry, and international jurists were increasingly outspoken about existence. of a possible “genocide” – a debate that remains unresolved for now. In the face of this situation, could Joe Sacco be silent? “A friend from Gaza called me and asked me to make the Palestinian voice heard”, he says. Hard for someone so quick to set responsibilities to shirk theirs. On the contrary, it involves digging, pulling the thread, until the ball is completely untied.
A short cry from the heart
Who is ultimately the real culprit? Hamas, which launched deadly attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? US President Joe Biden? Or himself, Joe Sacco, an honest taxpayer who, by paying his taxes, contributes decisively to the deaths of children in Gaza?
The result of his nightmarish musings is thirty-two pages long. Where Joe Sacco usually weighs in, contextualizes to the extreme, gathers each side’s point of view, verifies, confronts, War in Gaza it appears as a short cry from the heart. It is neither an inquiry nor a report, but a pamphlet. His target is an old man a few months from retirement: Joe Biden, who, at the time of the book’s printing, had not yet given up on running for a second term.
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