A Child in Palestine - the Cartoons Of Naji al-Ali back

With an endorsement from campaigning documentary film-maker John Pilger and an eloquent introduction by Joe Sacco, you know you're about to look at something important: political cartoons (i.e. single panels, mostly silent) which addressed not just the everyday hardships of the Palestinian population in the second half of the 20th Century and its monstrous and violent oppression by a succession of Israeli governments, but also the self-serving hypocrisy of the oil-fat Arab leaders in collusion with America.

"In a region marked by government control over the printed press, al-Ali dared to direct his criticism where it was due". For example, "How is national liberation achieved when the nation striving for freedom deprives vast numbers of its people of basic human rights?"

Revered as a champion by his people for whom he remains a household name, Naji al-Ali was assassinated in London on July 22, 1987. To this day we still don't know whether it was on the order of Israeli, Arab or even Palestinian factions. How did he get under their skins? It's all here complete with handy explanations (which on occasion for me veered into interpretation). The sinking of a unarmed Arab rowboat marked 'PEACE' by a giant US warship anchor struck me as particularly succinct, as well as an Arab leader sleeping with a 'Do Not Disturb' sign looped round his ear as an ordinary Arab man reads a newspaper declaring 'democratic dialogue'. On a wider note I thought the cartoon depicting two seated parties of woman, one wearing veils, the other not, eyeing each other with varying levels of trepidation/suspicion from the other half of the room... I thought that was quite profound and "true". Most of these images feature an ordinary Palestinian child called Hanthala, an iconic creation who never aged and only once that I can recall here ever showed his face. An unflinching witness with his back to us, he perceives what the ordinary Palestinian population itself perceives: the small hope for growth and freedom continually obliterated by forces beyond their control.

My one warning comes in the form of the strange selection process which meant that the first half a dozen cartoons unnecessarily inspire such little confidence that a casual browser might be put off. Rather than divided into subject matter and presented in no logical order I could discern, I instinctively and immediately questioned why they hadn't been reprinted in chronological order, thereby telling story. Even if it's one that has yet to have a happy ending.