Two new graphic volumes depict life in Israel - but one provides a sketchy picture.
By SETH J. FRANTZMANGuy Delisle 521 (photo credit: Guy Delisle)
Not long after arriving in Jerusalem to work with other “internationals” who are employed with NGOs in the city, Guy Delisle found himself in a supermarket in Pisgat Ze’ev, a Jerusalem neighborhood beyond the Green Line. Looking at a box of Shredded Wheat he wanted to buy on a shelf, a thought popped up in his head. “When you shop in the settlements, you’re supporting them,” a woman from Doctors Without Borders had lectured him recently. But then he heard another voice of his friend Nicolai: “Come on, it’s not like a pack of diapers is going to derail the peace process.”Delisle was sweating at this point, not knowing what to do. So he decided he could hold out a little longer before supporting the Israeli occupation.However, as he left the supermarket, he saw Muslim women coming out with bags full of groceries. He was thus confronted with one of many ironies of the Israel-Palestinian conflict: international volunteers are frequently more anti- Israel than local Palestinians.Delisle, an illustrator from Quebec, has worked on several previous graphic novels about life in North Korea and Burma. Now he turns his sharpened pen towards the Holy Land. What is interesting about Delisle’s chronicle is that it provides a unique insight into the life of the foreign government workers, expat community and international volunteers who come to Jerusalem. Because the author is neither Arab or Jewish, in some ways he has less emotion tied up in the place he is writing about.Chronicles is replete with an artist’s eye for detail and writer’s unique wit. At one point Delisle sees a UN truck collecting garbage near the Kalandiya checkpoint.It is only the first of a number of surprising run-ins with oddities in the Jerusalem area. A series of illustrations show the different types of photographers who go to take pictures of Arabs throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers: “there are professional photographers, amateurs, one with a Kevlar helmet, and two cute young women who look like they’re fresh from journalism school.”He illustrates the different types of succot and the outfits of different Christian priests.The author is certainly critical of Israel, but he takes it in stride. He lived in Jerusalem during Operation Cast Lead in January 2009, and contrasts the events of the conflict with his being stuck in traffic. As with most books on Israel, the “wall” figures prominently in this one.Traveling to Bethlehem, the author remarks that most tourists imagine the events of the New Testament with a stable and wise men, whereas the reality is primarily just a concrete jungle. He takes a tour with Breaking the Silence to Hebron and is subjected to a parade of horribles: illegal Israeli settlements, a road supposedly blocked to Palestinian traffic, and a Jewish activist who claims that “instead, locals need to take huge detours to work in their own fields.”The author concludes the trip by deciding that he should revisit Hebron with Jewish settlers: “Why not? Let’s be open-minded and impartial.” What is most striking about Chronicles is all the attention to the real details of the region. From the little domes of the old houses, to the famous desert monastery at Mar Saba, and the “monster” playground and slides in Kiryat Hayovel, the author captures it all, showing how intimately he got to know the city.Delisle’s account is not full of the usual preachy political nonsense. Instead he skewers those who are activists and those who are supposed to provide solutions.Meeting a member of Quartet leader Tony Blair’s team at a cocktail party, he illustrates the man summing up the problems with “things look pretty bad most of the time…” Thanks a lot.WHEREAS DELISLE actually came to Jerusalem and met Jews and Arabs and tried to listen and observe, Harvey Pekar and JT Waldman’s Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me is a laundry list and preachy history lesson that is supposed to teach the reader that Israel failed. Pekar is well known as the author of the graphic autobiography American Splendor. After his death in 2010, the book was illustrated by Waldman, and the story chronicles a day in the life of the two authors as Pekar “explores what it means to be Jewish and what Israel means to the Jews.”It is based on the premise that Pekar wants “to explain why my attitude about the state of Israel changed.” That presupposes that Pekar was once pro- Israel and became anti-Israel. But what follows is primarily a story of how Pekar grew up in a Zionist home and met lots of anti-Zionist critics who shared with him their ideas. Did the adult Pekar truly transform? The book includes a reprint of an oped Pekar wrote in the Cleveland Plain Dealer after Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. He argues that “too many Jews have adopted a ‘my country, right or wrong’ attitude toward Israel... an eye for an eye, or even several eyes for an eye, was not enough for Menachem Begin and his followers.” Pekar’s Israelcritical opinion thus doesn’t seem to have changed much between 1982 and 2010, and he clearly states that he was critical of the country since the 1960s.Although illustrated well, the story is primarily a history of the Jewish people, focusing on their experience in Europe, with some history of Islam thrown in on the side. In terms of the story of Israel, Pekar and Waldman stay true to the traditional view, showing how Arabs opposed Jewish immigration and how the Zionists created a state.He labels right-wing groups like the Irgun “terrorists” but doesn’t seem to mention or illustrate Arab terrorism.The reader is left wondering why the author devoted a book to an Israel he never seems to even have visited. Why is he worried that it wasn’t the country his parents “promised him” when he never wanted to live there or wanted to become active in developing it? Where Delisle saw the land and the people, Pekar prefers one-dimensional stereotypes and claims like “the 1980s also saw a rise of orthodox religious influence over the Israeli Government...as a result, a number of their demands, including the stoppage of all air traffic during the Sabbath, were met.”He gasps at the “irony” that Israel supposedly armed “a bunch of neo-fascist regimes.” This is a weak graphic novel that teaches the reader little about Israel, but perhaps tells us something about how some American Jews like to wrestle with a country that they have no stake in and don’t even visit.
Related TagsBreaking The Silence
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