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Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide
During the first Palestinian uprising in 1990, Jeffrey Goldberg – an American Jew – served as a guard at the largest prison camp in Israel. One of his prisoners was Rafiq, a rising leader in the PLO. Overcoming their fears and prejudices, the two men began a dialogue that, over more than a decade, grew into a remarkable friendship. Now an award-winning journalist, Goldberg describes their relationship and their confrontations over religious, cultural, and political differences; through these discussions, he attempts to make sense of the conflicts in this embattled region, revealing the truths that lie buried within the animosities of the Middle East.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
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March 26, 2025
It should be renamed Jeff Goldberg and Jeff Goldberg across the Middle East Divide because it is far more autobiographical than about a conversation or friendship of Muslim and Jew. He tells how he was hated by Christians growing up who called Jews Christ killers. He tells of being obsessed with reading about the Holocaust and listening to older relatives tell about it. He was enchanted by Kahane and other militant terrorist types at one point (and still can't fathom why Palestinians would want to pick up weapons or desire independence!). He went to Zionist socialist summer camps and longed to live in Israel for about a decade before he fulfilled the dream. Once there, he tried a kibbutz and the army before becoming disenchanted and returning to America. His time in the army at Ketziot prison during the first intifada is where the book takes place. Rafiq is the Muslim in the title and at that place they strike a tentative, cautious, tenuous, almost-friendship. Jeff is extremely critical of Palestinians, Islam and constantly suspects Rafiq of mal intent, notably when Rafiq gives him a clock and some other things to take back to America for a friend at the University and Jeff breaks into a cold sweat at night and smashes the clock to be sure it isn't a bomb. (If it were a bomb, uh...) Jeff doesn't give us nearly the amount of history and insights on Rafiq as he does himself; I don't think Jeff did him justice compared to the treatment in the title.
Jeff talks about a Jewish soldier who hates Arabs, but he justifies it in his mind because he got his arm blown off by a rocket. He doesn't ever say the same of Palestinians- their rage is unjustifiable no matter the circumstances. He also shares (some stated, some my impression) his feeling about Arabs- they are dirty, stupid, guilty, want to kill Jews, all in prison are guilty, etc. He thinks Palestinians should try Gandhi and King's methods, yet doesn't say anything about Israel's terrorist beginnings and if he thinks those are equally as appalling, wrong, criminal, immoral, etc. He doesn't mention that the Gandhis and Kings are frequently murdered or imprisoned by Israel. He spent his childhood longing to be an Israeli Jew with a gun instead of a weak Diaspora Jew and still can't understand why Palestinians turn to violence to resist and survive. It makes no sense.
He tells the story of a Jewish settler friend whose son was killed by Arabs and says he's ready to give up that land for peace even though it would mean moving the gravesite. He wants to find a Muslim who thinks that way and says he hasn't yet. I'm thinking it might have something to do with his not making friends with Muslims or the amount of high level people the US considers terrorists that he has as contacts for his job. He talks to these guys about religion and can't find a moderate. (Moderate likely meaning recognizes Israel and supports apartheid and genocide...) He also goes to talk to ex-prisoners, most of whom have done nothing in return for torture or indefinite detention without a charge.
Jeff says he's in search of a Muslim who wants peace more than to hate or kill Jews, but what he really wants is a double standard (and to falsely attribute the so called conflict to religion) - to find a Muslim to celebrate a Jewish only state while he does not have to understand the harm his people are inflicting via al Nakba. In order to consider them peaceful, he wants Palestinians to just accept massacres, unjust, unnecessary imprisonments (which ironically turned many from kids to revolutionaries), occupation, starvation, blockades, checkpoints, raids, organ harvesting, torture, policies like mowing the grass and breaking the bones, bombardment, Israeli control of land/sea/air/water/electricity, collective punishment, apartheid and genocide that continue to today.
Edit: He's now editor of The Atlantic, so you can imagine what sort of propaganda he unleashes on the relatively uninitiated US public.
Instead, you should read:
These Chains Will Be Broken by Ramzy Baroud
Sharon and My Mother In Law by Suad Amiry
When the Birds Stopped Singing by Raja Shehadeh
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé
The Hundred Years War by Rashid Khalidi
The Drone Eats With Me by Atef Abu Saif
Light in Gaza
If I Must Die/ Gaza Unsilenced by Refaat Alareer
Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question by Edward Said - this is very comprehensive, but reads like a textbook and isn't what I'd call an easy read. Informative, though.
Drinking the Sea at Gaza by Amira Hass
The Holocaust Industry by Norman Finklestein
The Lemon Tree. It is the story of a 1948 Palestinian refugee who eventually meets and talks to the family that moved into his house weeks after his family was forced from it. This one is fairly balanced, though there is a ton about the Holocaust- probably due to the fact that the author is a Holocaust scholar. I was struck by how similar the Jewish march to trains to death camps were to the Zionist Jews killing and forcing Palestinians from their homes in 1948...
Children of the Siege by Pauline Cutting
Days of Honey, Days of Onion: The Story of a Palestinian Family in Israel by Michael Gorkin
By Way of Deception: The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Officer
by Victor Ostrovsky
Norman Finkelstein, Paul Findley, Ghada Karmi, Noam Chomsky, Rashid Khalidi, John J. Mearsheimer are also good authors on this subject.
Jeff talks about a Jewish soldier who hates Arabs, but he justifies it in his mind because he got his arm blown off by a rocket. He doesn't ever say the same of Palestinians- their rage is unjustifiable no matter the circumstances. He also shares (some stated, some my impression) his feeling about Arabs- they are dirty, stupid, guilty, want to kill Jews, all in prison are guilty, etc. He thinks Palestinians should try Gandhi and King's methods, yet doesn't say anything about Israel's terrorist beginnings and if he thinks those are equally as appalling, wrong, criminal, immoral, etc. He doesn't mention that the Gandhis and Kings are frequently murdered or imprisoned by Israel. He spent his childhood longing to be an Israeli Jew with a gun instead of a weak Diaspora Jew and still can't understand why Palestinians turn to violence to resist and survive. It makes no sense.
He tells the story of a Jewish settler friend whose son was killed by Arabs and says he's ready to give up that land for peace even though it would mean moving the gravesite. He wants to find a Muslim who thinks that way and says he hasn't yet. I'm thinking it might have something to do with his not making friends with Muslims or the amount of high level people the US considers terrorists that he has as contacts for his job. He talks to these guys about religion and can't find a moderate. (Moderate likely meaning recognizes Israel and supports apartheid and genocide...) He also goes to talk to ex-prisoners, most of whom have done nothing in return for torture or indefinite detention without a charge.
Jeff says he's in search of a Muslim who wants peace more than to hate or kill Jews, but what he really wants is a double standard (and to falsely attribute the so called conflict to religion) - to find a Muslim to celebrate a Jewish only state while he does not have to understand the harm his people are inflicting via al Nakba. In order to consider them peaceful, he wants Palestinians to just accept massacres, unjust, unnecessary imprisonments (which ironically turned many from kids to revolutionaries), occupation, starvation, blockades, checkpoints, raids, organ harvesting, torture, policies like mowing the grass and breaking the bones, bombardment, Israeli control of land/sea/air/water/electricity, collective punishment, apartheid and genocide that continue to today.
Edit: He's now editor of The Atlantic, so you can imagine what sort of propaganda he unleashes on the relatively uninitiated US public.
Instead, you should read:
These Chains Will Be Broken by Ramzy Baroud
Sharon and My Mother In Law by Suad Amiry
When the Birds Stopped Singing by Raja Shehadeh
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé
The Hundred Years War by Rashid Khalidi
The Drone Eats With Me by Atef Abu Saif
Light in Gaza
If I Must Die/ Gaza Unsilenced by Refaat Alareer
Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question by Edward Said - this is very comprehensive, but reads like a textbook and isn't what I'd call an easy read. Informative, though.
Drinking the Sea at Gaza by Amira Hass
The Holocaust Industry by Norman Finklestein
The Lemon Tree. It is the story of a 1948 Palestinian refugee who eventually meets and talks to the family that moved into his house weeks after his family was forced from it. This one is fairly balanced, though there is a ton about the Holocaust- probably due to the fact that the author is a Holocaust scholar. I was struck by how similar the Jewish march to trains to death camps were to the Zionist Jews killing and forcing Palestinians from their homes in 1948...
Children of the Siege by Pauline Cutting
Days of Honey, Days of Onion: The Story of a Palestinian Family in Israel by Michael Gorkin
By Way of Deception: The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Officer
by Victor Ostrovsky
Norman Finkelstein, Paul Findley, Ghada Karmi, Noam Chomsky, Rashid Khalidi, John J. Mearsheimer are also good authors on this subject.
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July 19, 2013The second book I've read this week by a white male writer who is an eloquent prose stylist, but whose basic outlook I disagreed with so completely it was almost uncomfortable reading. -- I don't think we're supposed to feel sympathy with poor Rafiq in this book as his FORMER CAPTOR constantly pursues and interrogates and harangues him, going like me like me be my friend love me forgive me, but that was the impression I sure got. (Elena Rappin also apparently felt this, to some extent.)
I also found out AFTER I bought the book that Goldberg wrote two infamous New Yorker articles, "The Great Terror" (we should go to war because Hussein has ties to Al-Qaeda!) and "In the Party of God" (similar nonsense about Hezbollah). If I had known that, if I'd bought his book, I would've gotten it used. Or from the library.
I also found out AFTER I bought the book that Goldberg wrote two infamous New Yorker articles, "The Great Terror" (we should go to war because Hussein has ties to Al-Qaeda!) and "In the Party of God" (similar nonsense about Hezbollah). If I had known that, if I'd bought his book, I would've gotten it used. Or from the library.
March 30, 2010
Easily one of the best books I've ever read. Truth be told, this book will probably teach you more essential truths about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than most undergraduate courses on the subject. Plus, it reads like a novel, and the writing is spellbindingly stellar.
Freelance journalist Jeffrey Goldberg tells his life story -- an American Jew who emigrates to Israel, lives on a kibbutz, joins the Israeli Army and serves as an MP in one of Israel's most notorious prisons during the First Intifada. Goldberg catalogs his enchantment and disillusionment with the Zionist ideals of his youth, and charts his lifelong attempt to understand both the Israeli and Palestinian mindset. While cataloging the absurdities of ideological extremists on both sides and the obstacles they continue to lay on the path towards peace, Goldberg weaves a tiny, fragile, but glimmering thread of hope throughout his tale -- not an easy task for any book about the Middle East, and this subject particularly.
This is a must-read for anyone even remotely interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Freelance journalist Jeffrey Goldberg tells his life story -- an American Jew who emigrates to Israel, lives on a kibbutz, joins the Israeli Army and serves as an MP in one of Israel's most notorious prisons during the First Intifada. Goldberg catalogs his enchantment and disillusionment with the Zionist ideals of his youth, and charts his lifelong attempt to understand both the Israeli and Palestinian mindset. While cataloging the absurdities of ideological extremists on both sides and the obstacles they continue to lay on the path towards peace, Goldberg weaves a tiny, fragile, but glimmering thread of hope throughout his tale -- not an easy task for any book about the Middle East, and this subject particularly.
This is a must-read for anyone even remotely interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
September 2, 2014
"Prisoners" is a memoir that's journalistic in style and larded with emotion. I did not find it to be a dispassionate account of the Israel/Palestine confrontations. Rather, it is an example of how we are all blindered by our preconceptions. I think this is dangerous when a story is told superficially so well.
Mr. Goldberg is obviously a sensitive person on a personal level, but he is caught up - as are the Palestinians - in his own personal emotions. In his case, the emotions come out of his life story as an American Jew excited by the power and assertiveness of Israelis. Throughout, I think he remains somewhat parochial. That is, he strongly identifies with really only one side in the conflicts.
He spends a great deal of time relating in passages of a few pages his contacts with Islamic fundamentalist clerics and others and their theology of hatred and injury. However, he spends no time on the counter-group in Israel. That is, the fundamentalist Orthodox and settler leaders with their theology of aggressive territorialism. Indeed, Mr. G's book seems to be all about the views of Islamists and nothing about the views of any Israelis on the street. Without all the views, it is hard to see how anyone can shuck off the "imprisonment" of circumstances and ceases to be a "prisoner".
Additionally, Mr. G. is most at home writing about extremist views, in particular extremist views that he garners from actors in Gaza. We hear little of the views of persons in the West Bank, and nothing of the views of persons who are simply trying to raise a family, put food on the table, and so forth. These persons include, of course, the Israeli on the street.
I think Mr. G. has a certain sympathy for Palestinians, but that he is also intransigently pro-Israeli. He does not seem to understand that not only 1967, but also 1948, and all the centuries previous are part of the Palestinian heritage. At one point, Mr. G. relates, in a turning point in his personal story, that Rafiq said that he would kill him if he met him outside the prison. But I wonder whether, if he were required to, and all things being equal, Mr. G. would not do the same to Rafiq.
Mr. Goldberg is obviously a sensitive person on a personal level, but he is caught up - as are the Palestinians - in his own personal emotions. In his case, the emotions come out of his life story as an American Jew excited by the power and assertiveness of Israelis. Throughout, I think he remains somewhat parochial. That is, he strongly identifies with really only one side in the conflicts.
He spends a great deal of time relating in passages of a few pages his contacts with Islamic fundamentalist clerics and others and their theology of hatred and injury. However, he spends no time on the counter-group in Israel. That is, the fundamentalist Orthodox and settler leaders with their theology of aggressive territorialism. Indeed, Mr. G's book seems to be all about the views of Islamists and nothing about the views of any Israelis on the street. Without all the views, it is hard to see how anyone can shuck off the "imprisonment" of circumstances and ceases to be a "prisoner".
Additionally, Mr. G. is most at home writing about extremist views, in particular extremist views that he garners from actors in Gaza. We hear little of the views of persons in the West Bank, and nothing of the views of persons who are simply trying to raise a family, put food on the table, and so forth. These persons include, of course, the Israeli on the street.
I think Mr. G. has a certain sympathy for Palestinians, but that he is also intransigently pro-Israeli. He does not seem to understand that not only 1967, but also 1948, and all the centuries previous are part of the Palestinian heritage. At one point, Mr. G. relates, in a turning point in his personal story, that Rafiq said that he would kill him if he met him outside the prison. But I wonder whether, if he were required to, and all things being equal, Mr. G. would not do the same to Rafiq.
June 26, 2013
This is an impressive book. Far better, more passionate and more mature than From Beirut to Jerusalem. At times it reads like a thriller, that’s how engaging a writer Goldberg is. You can tell something is at stake here for him. It’s not just a dispassionate discussion about Jews and Muslims, analyzed at a remove. But I enjoyed his analyses, too. As a guard in a prison for Palestinians, he becomes familiar with Fatah indoctrination. “Much Fatah talk was a stale echo of Third World liberation ideology. Its misunderstanding of Zionism was profound: Zionists were seen as the agents of Cecil Rhodes, sent off by London to put the wogs under heel. But it was a crime against history to call the Jews, Europe’s longest-suffering victims, the new face of European imperialism.” I particularly liked that one, helped put all the imperialism/colonialism talk in context for me. The only parts that consistently bugged me were his descriptions of religious Jews which were reflexively condescending. Anyone who ended up religious was obviously a “lost boy” to begin with. It would’ve been nice if his attitude toward religion and religious people had been more mature and as clear-eyed as the rest of this book, but I guess you can’t have everything.
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December 16, 2020One of the most engrossing books I've read recently--I had difficulty putting it down. However, I was not a huge fan of the author's perspective. I found myself agreeing more with Rafiq about certain things they argued about. In general, I was a little put off by Goldberg's lack of sociological imagination. Small example: I myself would never want to wear a niqab or become a suicide bomber, but some other people do, and there are real and sometimes very understandable reasons for why people arrive at those decisions. From the privileged, highly educated, Western, individualist, enfranchised perspective of a rich white American man, that may seem purely barbaric and ignorant, but I think he's not exactly in any position to know or understand.
That said, it's a very interesting story about an odd friendship, an example of what is possible if a different way is attempted and invested in.
That said, it's a very interesting story about an odd friendship, an example of what is possible if a different way is attempted and invested in.
September 30, 2024
Two decent courageous people diametrically opposed in their religious and political identities have a genuine friendship that without the specter of a righteous god on both sides could have lived together in Palestine . A sad commentary on how little we have learned from history and religion
October 3, 2007
GREAT unfiltered perspective on how the Israel-Palestine conflict is experienced and viewed by those involved. Very intense. If you're looking to find some hope about this conflict, this is not the book. But it is a great read and was a wonderful new view point, diverging from the academic reading I've done about this conflict in the past.
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December 26, 2020I can't rate this book. It's 322 pages long, and the first 200 deal with the author's life. The dialogue between the author and Rafiq was interjected between visits to this and that, talks with leaders of different Palestinian groups., being arrested, life in Israel vs. the US, etc. It was both too little and too much. I'm glad I read it, but I didn't enjoy it.
December 1, 2007
I thought a book about an American Jew who emigrates to Israel and does military service in the biggest prison for Palestinians, and (guessing from the title) makes friends with a Palestinian, would be good, but I couldn't get into it.
November 2, 2010
Love to know what Rafiq's side of the story is.
September 17, 2011
A great book about an idealist journalist, Goldberg, who is in search of his Jewish roots and what happens to him in finding it in Israel. The quest on peace in Israel really rests on individual relationships of understanding between Jews and Palestinians a la Jeff and Rafiq. Perhaps having similar temperaments of individuals such as Jeff and Rafiq can bridge a such a huge chasm between Israeli and Palestinians.
Goldberg rightly sees the irony of celebrating Jewish Passover in a Israeli prison that is suppressing Palestinian's fighting for their own freedom. Jeff returns to America because he feels disillusioned by his view of Israel as the promise land of Peace. Besides wanting to believe Peace is possible, I think Jeff in his need to become a war journalist experiences exhilaration in being in an environment in which war is imminent and danger is just around the corner.
After reading this book, I am convince that there must be strong political will on both the Israeli and Palestinian side of the equation because whoever enacts the two state solution will not be popular with their populace from the Palestinian side this means Hamas/Islamic Jihad and from the Jewish side it will be the settlers who will not be happy. But despite their stringent ideologies both the Israeli and Palestinians are ready for peace though there is significant distrust on both sides of the divide.
The only way forward toward a lasting Israeli/Palestinian peace is if there is a two state solution with clear national boundaries. This means, Palestinian's giving up their quest for the right of return in exchange for Israeli's getting kicked off their settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. It is really hard to take seriously a peace in which there are no clear borders because incursion by both sides could mean open war. A significant sticking point seems to be the city of Jerusalem. The irony here is of course it is the holiest city of the three big monotheistic religion but it is what violently divides these religion. I think the only solution here is to make Jerusalem an international city under the auspices of UN security. The UN army would be made up of all three religions and they would provide security for their own holy sites. The UN security members would have to swear loyalty to the UN and would be fired if it is known that they have sectarian loyalty above the UN. While the ground troops may be from people from the region, the upper-level officers must be from these religions but have no ties to the region. The officers would come from dispassionate third party country at least in the beginning that has no regional loyalties whatsoever.
The failure of the late 90's peace accords really lies on Arafat's lack of political will in making an unpopular right decision. Now, it is Bibi turn with his increase in settlement building. I understand the annoyance of the Palestinians with the settlements because if the roads between Israel and their settlement fall under Israeli command it can seriously hamper the sovereignty of the Palestinian state.
If Israel is truly serious about peace, Israel would welcome a Palestinian state with responsibilities of a state because it is harder to govern than to be a freedom fighter. As Palestinian's themselves, like Rafiq, found out Arafat and his exiled PLO fighters were corrupt and are no saint. The problem for Israeli security is Palestinians are currently overwhelmingly against Israeli occupation. If the occupation is lifted and they have their own state, the Palestinians will be too preoccupied with fixing their own problems to worry about Israel (look how Al-Quaeda no longer has pull in Egypt as it once did because of Egyptian democratic self-determination; because Egyptian's know that they have to fix their own problems). Since the Palestinians are currently dependent on Israel for its economy, the state will be hard pressed to bring to justice any Palestinian terrorist lest their whole economy and thus their state falls into shambles. And as a state, Palestine would be condemned by the international community as sponsor of terrorism if that occurs. Also I would think Israel would think this is an opportune time to have as state of Palestine since the Palestinian population will outnumber Jews soon so it would be impossible to have Jewish democratic state.
Of course both extremist on both sides, Sephardic Orthodox Jews and Islamist fundamentalist Hamas try to destroy the peace process by antagonizing each other. How can peace thrive when two groups who hate each other are unified in their opposition to peace and would do anything to prevent peace from occurring? According to Goldberg some of the Arabs assertion that Israeli kill innocent people as a preemptive measure is correct, leading to never ending rounds of violence.
I am beginning to understand the Jewish people intense affinity for Israel which to us seems to be a fight over desert land. I think the affinity stems from the heritage and religion that is found in the bible. It is like if American history was not only important national history but also important religious history too.
I always wondered why Jews align themselves with the oppressed minority social causes when they look like the majority. The book explains that just as Black people have the specter of the American slavery past that haunts them even now, Jews have holocaust and countless other progroms that continue to influence their collective consciousness as Jews. The feelings of being a historically oppressed group makes them lean heavily toward civil rights movements that give minorities a voice equal to the majority. Goldberg apathy for being American is a kin to an American black man's feeling of disconnect to America when he finds out the America had a slavery past.
Speaking of oppression, the Soviet Union of religious suppression combined with cultural suppression must have been extremely oppressive in their vaunted state police state. Plus, the fact that the Soviets imprisoned Jews for wanting to go to Israel made me realize why there are a lot of Russian Jews in Israel. Also, it constantly surprises me how Christians prosecuted Jews for so long and we were the ones who instituted progroms toward the Jews.
It is predictable that any oppressed group which have a feeling of powerlessness, once they are in power become the oppressors. This is why given the fact that Jews have been oppressed for so long, it does not surprise me that they in turn will oppress the Palestinians. Speaking of the victims becoming the victimizers, I know realize that maybe the saying that one man's hero is another man's terrorist might be true considering Begin and Sharon who were prominent Israeli prime ministers were at one point massacred Palestinians en masse. Begin and Arafat share a feature of terrorism in pursuit of the absolute cause they believed in.
After reading this book, I now understand the affinity that Americans have for Israel. It is the fact that like Americans, Israeli's feel the consciousness of manifest destiny that is the God has preordained the land of Israel to belong to his chosen people just like America was preordained to Americans despite the obvious fact that there were people who already lived on the land that the Divine "bestowed" on them. The settler's issue tend to remind me of American settlements
in Native American lands. Having said this, I also think that the Arabs are right that there is no way the state of Israel could exist in its current form without foreign aid from America. If 8 years of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan can make our debt and economy so bad rationally think what 50 years occupying the West Bank and Gaza does to the Israel. Despite the fact, Jews are one of our main ethnicities that promote growth in US, Israel a country of Jews is not one of the G-20 because of their constant state of war. In fact Israel is only second to the US in start-ups, yet ranks 27th GDP per capita. Now considering this fact, how does one suppose one gets 1st grade military hardware without having one of the best economies in the world; the only conclusion is through American foreign aid. So, why doesn't the US give just enough military aid for Israel to protect itself not more so they have to withdraw from Palestine?
I generally like the Israeli Peace Now movement of the left because the Peace Now movement have a very practical side to it and that is, they want to be left alone by the Arabs in Peace. The reason why there is a greater credence to this particular movement is because the people in charge of the movement are soldiers who fight in the front lines and who would die for the state of Israel. Kibbutz or, Zionist socialism experiment is a failure because the descendants of the original founders loses the ideals of the founders to them socialism is just an inefficient way to do business. Thus, socialism works only during the founders generation and if the population is small enough in which collectivism can be enforced without laws.
Although is disconcerted about his American naivitee, I think that it is exactly this naivietee that gives Americans as a whole the hope for world peace. Because America is largely a society in which peace reigns, we expect other nations to be the same so as such we become the light of the world for peace and human rights within a nation. Likewise, immigrants love to come to the US because we are the land of opportunity in which our economy is open to all as such we should keep our economy strong so we can serve us a light to other nations to follow. America is the greatest hope for Peace in the world today with its enormous diversity that spans every country in the world a certain understanding can develop. Only in the fertile moral grounds of American openness and understanding, can American Jew be raised to want to search for peace with his mortal enemy the Palestinian by becoming friends with him and at the same time keep his distinct Jewish identity.
I like the fact that America vetted Rafiq and Kemal so they can study in American universities. Even though Rafiq loyalty to Gaza was strong, he does yearn for his Washington days when he could move up in American society based on merit. Later it states that the Western ways made both Kemal and Rafiq become fundamental Islamist with the same pulsing hatred that the suicide bombers showed toward America. But it is also informative that they became more moderate when they went back to the middle east with jobs. Thus, giving more credence to my theory that we have to promote democracy abroad so these people have a say in their government. We should also promote a stable middle class growth because it is only with a thriving engaged citizenry will fundamentalist stop making suicide bombers to bomb us. Rafiq radicalism became compliant when he went back to the middle east to practice his craft which he learned from America.
In terms of foreign policy and terrorist and suicide bombers mentality, I think it is extremely important that these peoples own government be a democracy so instead of causing problems for us, they have to worry about their own welfare and thus their own government, a thriving market economy and thus a growing middle class so they have something to live for and equally a fear of something to lose in engaging in terrorist activities, and an education based on critical thinking skills so they can question the random religious edict that whether suicide bombing is actually the will of Allah or Satan. After all, the perfect breeding ground for terrorism are failed states with a stagnant economy with high accompanying unemployment that blames their failure as a state on external countries such as the US. Rafiq feeling of superiority due to him being Arab underscores the importance that a vibrant democracy with a huge middle class in Iraq, Tunisia, Libya, and most importantly Egypt thrive. I think the US diplomatic mission to those places underscores the importance that these places have in the war on terror.
We now know that the real terrorist state is Pakistan not Iraq.
The issue of terrorism and suicide bombing really rest on changing the thinking by changing the culture in these places to value life. It is no wonder these people do not value life with high unemployment for young adults coupled with the loss of human dignity and lack of national self-determination is very dangerous. One cannot fear the loss of life when one does not have a life to speak of. It is also suspicious that suicide bombers tend to be unattached and unemployed young males.
I think Arabs Muslims are angry because they are experiencing a cognitive dissonance in that the Koran says they are the chosen people but their countries and culture is falling behind the rest of the world. So, they cling to their former greatness which occurred in the era of Ahmed.
Goldberg shows that these Palestinians actually want to get punished for their cause so they can prove to their tribe that they are hero's of the tribe. How can one punish a person who wears punishment as a badge of honor? We really have to slowly but surely change the way these people think in order for them to think life has a value instead of life being devoid of value. Terrorist want a war of civilization. So the smart thing to do to counter this is targeted killings of their leadership combined with a disruption of the their finance couple with cultural diplomatic and multi-development minded action in order to destroy the recruiting efforts of these terrorist groups.
Also, the value of cross-cultural trade as a means for peace by initially imparting to the Palestinians and Israelis the value of dispassionate trust and interconnectedness is a I believe the first step to long-lasting peace. By cross-cultural trade, the Palestinians and Israeli's will be forced due to intertwining economies to temper their blood-lust for each other.
The folly of placing all Palestinians in jail regardless of crime is that the jail cells become their recruiting centers. Apparently, jail is where Palestinians get indoctrinated into the Palestinian movement. If I were Israeli's I would separate the Palestinian mastermind and intellectuals from their rank and file member especially those who have not been indoctrinated into Palestinian mentality. I would also treat the 1st time offenders better that shows more of the compassionate side of Jews to stem the recruiting efforts of Palestinian terrorist. Like Rafiq, a mistake by Shabak in arresting an innocent man led him right in to the arms of Hamas/Fatah where he was indoctrinated and rose to a command position because of his intellect. The best way for terrorist to recruit is to force Shabak to arrest innocent people thus leading credence that terrorism is the people's only salvation. I would also flood the Palestinian with information so that they are not continuously brainwashed into Palestinian propaganda. The ICRC floods Palestinians with revolutionary ideology but why not the non-violent movement. Another interesting thing is that collaborators are killed by Palestinians themselves even a hint of collaboration can lead to someones death.
Apparently, there is a difference between Hamas and Fatah that makes Fatah the ones who are more likely to negotiate for peace. Whereas Hamas struggle is deeply fundamentally religious thus making it harder to negotiate peace with them, Fatah is more practical in its Palestinian resistance approach. Theological reasoning for temporal policies are the main issue that is keeping Israel from Peace. Be it Hamas who reason that it is God's will the Jews be kicked out of Palestine or the Israeli settlers who insist that God gave them the West Bank and Gaza as state in the Torah, it is these unyielding theological dogma that is keeping Israel from long-lasting peace.
I think this is how Christianity with its focus on saving of individual souls is superior to both Judaism and Islam because by its theology, Christianity focuses on individual betterment as a path to salvation and leaves temporal concerns to earthly powers. One hopes that an elected official is influenced by Christianity but even serious evangelical politicians would be laughed off the political stage if he sights the Bible as what he measures his policy proposal with.
Jeffery Golberg and Rafiq's friendship underscores the importance of friendships between diplomats of enemy states because even if we do not share the others views in terms of policy the relationship between friends will keep the dialogue alive. Incidentally, this observation also applies to our polarized political climate. I think it is only through friendship and admiration can one work with someone who ideologically you are opposed to.
Goldberg rightly sees the irony of celebrating Jewish Passover in a Israeli prison that is suppressing Palestinian's fighting for their own freedom. Jeff returns to America because he feels disillusioned by his view of Israel as the promise land of Peace. Besides wanting to believe Peace is possible, I think Jeff in his need to become a war journalist experiences exhilaration in being in an environment in which war is imminent and danger is just around the corner.
After reading this book, I am convince that there must be strong political will on both the Israeli and Palestinian side of the equation because whoever enacts the two state solution will not be popular with their populace from the Palestinian side this means Hamas/Islamic Jihad and from the Jewish side it will be the settlers who will not be happy. But despite their stringent ideologies both the Israeli and Palestinians are ready for peace though there is significant distrust on both sides of the divide.
The only way forward toward a lasting Israeli/Palestinian peace is if there is a two state solution with clear national boundaries. This means, Palestinian's giving up their quest for the right of return in exchange for Israeli's getting kicked off their settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. It is really hard to take seriously a peace in which there are no clear borders because incursion by both sides could mean open war. A significant sticking point seems to be the city of Jerusalem. The irony here is of course it is the holiest city of the three big monotheistic religion but it is what violently divides these religion. I think the only solution here is to make Jerusalem an international city under the auspices of UN security. The UN army would be made up of all three religions and they would provide security for their own holy sites. The UN security members would have to swear loyalty to the UN and would be fired if it is known that they have sectarian loyalty above the UN. While the ground troops may be from people from the region, the upper-level officers must be from these religions but have no ties to the region. The officers would come from dispassionate third party country at least in the beginning that has no regional loyalties whatsoever.
The failure of the late 90's peace accords really lies on Arafat's lack of political will in making an unpopular right decision. Now, it is Bibi turn with his increase in settlement building. I understand the annoyance of the Palestinians with the settlements because if the roads between Israel and their settlement fall under Israeli command it can seriously hamper the sovereignty of the Palestinian state.
If Israel is truly serious about peace, Israel would welcome a Palestinian state with responsibilities of a state because it is harder to govern than to be a freedom fighter. As Palestinian's themselves, like Rafiq, found out Arafat and his exiled PLO fighters were corrupt and are no saint. The problem for Israeli security is Palestinians are currently overwhelmingly against Israeli occupation. If the occupation is lifted and they have their own state, the Palestinians will be too preoccupied with fixing their own problems to worry about Israel (look how Al-Quaeda no longer has pull in Egypt as it once did because of Egyptian democratic self-determination; because Egyptian's know that they have to fix their own problems). Since the Palestinians are currently dependent on Israel for its economy, the state will be hard pressed to bring to justice any Palestinian terrorist lest their whole economy and thus their state falls into shambles. And as a state, Palestine would be condemned by the international community as sponsor of terrorism if that occurs. Also I would think Israel would think this is an opportune time to have as state of Palestine since the Palestinian population will outnumber Jews soon so it would be impossible to have Jewish democratic state.
Of course both extremist on both sides, Sephardic Orthodox Jews and Islamist fundamentalist Hamas try to destroy the peace process by antagonizing each other. How can peace thrive when two groups who hate each other are unified in their opposition to peace and would do anything to prevent peace from occurring? According to Goldberg some of the Arabs assertion that Israeli kill innocent people as a preemptive measure is correct, leading to never ending rounds of violence.
I am beginning to understand the Jewish people intense affinity for Israel which to us seems to be a fight over desert land. I think the affinity stems from the heritage and religion that is found in the bible. It is like if American history was not only important national history but also important religious history too.
I always wondered why Jews align themselves with the oppressed minority social causes when they look like the majority. The book explains that just as Black people have the specter of the American slavery past that haunts them even now, Jews have holocaust and countless other progroms that continue to influence their collective consciousness as Jews. The feelings of being a historically oppressed group makes them lean heavily toward civil rights movements that give minorities a voice equal to the majority. Goldberg apathy for being American is a kin to an American black man's feeling of disconnect to America when he finds out the America had a slavery past.
Speaking of oppression, the Soviet Union of religious suppression combined with cultural suppression must have been extremely oppressive in their vaunted state police state. Plus, the fact that the Soviets imprisoned Jews for wanting to go to Israel made me realize why there are a lot of Russian Jews in Israel. Also, it constantly surprises me how Christians prosecuted Jews for so long and we were the ones who instituted progroms toward the Jews.
It is predictable that any oppressed group which have a feeling of powerlessness, once they are in power become the oppressors. This is why given the fact that Jews have been oppressed for so long, it does not surprise me that they in turn will oppress the Palestinians. Speaking of the victims becoming the victimizers, I know realize that maybe the saying that one man's hero is another man's terrorist might be true considering Begin and Sharon who were prominent Israeli prime ministers were at one point massacred Palestinians en masse. Begin and Arafat share a feature of terrorism in pursuit of the absolute cause they believed in.
After reading this book, I now understand the affinity that Americans have for Israel. It is the fact that like Americans, Israeli's feel the consciousness of manifest destiny that is the God has preordained the land of Israel to belong to his chosen people just like America was preordained to Americans despite the obvious fact that there were people who already lived on the land that the Divine "bestowed" on them. The settler's issue tend to remind me of American settlements
in Native American lands. Having said this, I also think that the Arabs are right that there is no way the state of Israel could exist in its current form without foreign aid from America. If 8 years of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan can make our debt and economy so bad rationally think what 50 years occupying the West Bank and Gaza does to the Israel. Despite the fact, Jews are one of our main ethnicities that promote growth in US, Israel a country of Jews is not one of the G-20 because of their constant state of war. In fact Israel is only second to the US in start-ups, yet ranks 27th GDP per capita. Now considering this fact, how does one suppose one gets 1st grade military hardware without having one of the best economies in the world; the only conclusion is through American foreign aid. So, why doesn't the US give just enough military aid for Israel to protect itself not more so they have to withdraw from Palestine?
I generally like the Israeli Peace Now movement of the left because the Peace Now movement have a very practical side to it and that is, they want to be left alone by the Arabs in Peace. The reason why there is a greater credence to this particular movement is because the people in charge of the movement are soldiers who fight in the front lines and who would die for the state of Israel. Kibbutz or, Zionist socialism experiment is a failure because the descendants of the original founders loses the ideals of the founders to them socialism is just an inefficient way to do business. Thus, socialism works only during the founders generation and if the population is small enough in which collectivism can be enforced without laws.
Although is disconcerted about his American naivitee, I think that it is exactly this naivietee that gives Americans as a whole the hope for world peace. Because America is largely a society in which peace reigns, we expect other nations to be the same so as such we become the light of the world for peace and human rights within a nation. Likewise, immigrants love to come to the US because we are the land of opportunity in which our economy is open to all as such we should keep our economy strong so we can serve us a light to other nations to follow. America is the greatest hope for Peace in the world today with its enormous diversity that spans every country in the world a certain understanding can develop. Only in the fertile moral grounds of American openness and understanding, can American Jew be raised to want to search for peace with his mortal enemy the Palestinian by becoming friends with him and at the same time keep his distinct Jewish identity.
I like the fact that America vetted Rafiq and Kemal so they can study in American universities. Even though Rafiq loyalty to Gaza was strong, he does yearn for his Washington days when he could move up in American society based on merit. Later it states that the Western ways made both Kemal and Rafiq become fundamental Islamist with the same pulsing hatred that the suicide bombers showed toward America. But it is also informative that they became more moderate when they went back to the middle east with jobs. Thus, giving more credence to my theory that we have to promote democracy abroad so these people have a say in their government. We should also promote a stable middle class growth because it is only with a thriving engaged citizenry will fundamentalist stop making suicide bombers to bomb us. Rafiq radicalism became compliant when he went back to the middle east to practice his craft which he learned from America.
In terms of foreign policy and terrorist and suicide bombers mentality, I think it is extremely important that these peoples own government be a democracy so instead of causing problems for us, they have to worry about their own welfare and thus their own government, a thriving market economy and thus a growing middle class so they have something to live for and equally a fear of something to lose in engaging in terrorist activities, and an education based on critical thinking skills so they can question the random religious edict that whether suicide bombing is actually the will of Allah or Satan. After all, the perfect breeding ground for terrorism are failed states with a stagnant economy with high accompanying unemployment that blames their failure as a state on external countries such as the US. Rafiq feeling of superiority due to him being Arab underscores the importance that a vibrant democracy with a huge middle class in Iraq, Tunisia, Libya, and most importantly Egypt thrive. I think the US diplomatic mission to those places underscores the importance that these places have in the war on terror.
We now know that the real terrorist state is Pakistan not Iraq.
The issue of terrorism and suicide bombing really rest on changing the thinking by changing the culture in these places to value life. It is no wonder these people do not value life with high unemployment for young adults coupled with the loss of human dignity and lack of national self-determination is very dangerous. One cannot fear the loss of life when one does not have a life to speak of. It is also suspicious that suicide bombers tend to be unattached and unemployed young males.
I think Arabs Muslims are angry because they are experiencing a cognitive dissonance in that the Koran says they are the chosen people but their countries and culture is falling behind the rest of the world. So, they cling to their former greatness which occurred in the era of Ahmed.
Goldberg shows that these Palestinians actually want to get punished for their cause so they can prove to their tribe that they are hero's of the tribe. How can one punish a person who wears punishment as a badge of honor? We really have to slowly but surely change the way these people think in order for them to think life has a value instead of life being devoid of value. Terrorist want a war of civilization. So the smart thing to do to counter this is targeted killings of their leadership combined with a disruption of the their finance couple with cultural diplomatic and multi-development minded action in order to destroy the recruiting efforts of these terrorist groups.
Also, the value of cross-cultural trade as a means for peace by initially imparting to the Palestinians and Israelis the value of dispassionate trust and interconnectedness is a I believe the first step to long-lasting peace. By cross-cultural trade, the Palestinians and Israeli's will be forced due to intertwining economies to temper their blood-lust for each other.
The folly of placing all Palestinians in jail regardless of crime is that the jail cells become their recruiting centers. Apparently, jail is where Palestinians get indoctrinated into the Palestinian movement. If I were Israeli's I would separate the Palestinian mastermind and intellectuals from their rank and file member especially those who have not been indoctrinated into Palestinian mentality. I would also treat the 1st time offenders better that shows more of the compassionate side of Jews to stem the recruiting efforts of Palestinian terrorist. Like Rafiq, a mistake by Shabak in arresting an innocent man led him right in to the arms of Hamas/Fatah where he was indoctrinated and rose to a command position because of his intellect. The best way for terrorist to recruit is to force Shabak to arrest innocent people thus leading credence that terrorism is the people's only salvation. I would also flood the Palestinian with information so that they are not continuously brainwashed into Palestinian propaganda. The ICRC floods Palestinians with revolutionary ideology but why not the non-violent movement. Another interesting thing is that collaborators are killed by Palestinians themselves even a hint of collaboration can lead to someones death.
Apparently, there is a difference between Hamas and Fatah that makes Fatah the ones who are more likely to negotiate for peace. Whereas Hamas struggle is deeply fundamentally religious thus making it harder to negotiate peace with them, Fatah is more practical in its Palestinian resistance approach. Theological reasoning for temporal policies are the main issue that is keeping Israel from Peace. Be it Hamas who reason that it is God's will the Jews be kicked out of Palestine or the Israeli settlers who insist that God gave them the West Bank and Gaza as state in the Torah, it is these unyielding theological dogma that is keeping Israel from long-lasting peace.
I think this is how Christianity with its focus on saving of individual souls is superior to both Judaism and Islam because by its theology, Christianity focuses on individual betterment as a path to salvation and leaves temporal concerns to earthly powers. One hopes that an elected official is influenced by Christianity but even serious evangelical politicians would be laughed off the political stage if he sights the Bible as what he measures his policy proposal with.
Jeffery Golberg and Rafiq's friendship underscores the importance of friendships between diplomats of enemy states because even if we do not share the others views in terms of policy the relationship between friends will keep the dialogue alive. Incidentally, this observation also applies to our polarized political climate. I think it is only through friendship and admiration can one work with someone who ideologically you are opposed to.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 25, 2018
Goldberg's examination of his own captivity becomes the frame for questions about the nature of incarceration, power, and freedom. He details the fear that made him dismantle a gift in a hotel room at 3 a.m., doubts about whether he should carry gifts to Palestine, and soaring hopes about the transformation of killers into civilians with no desire for violence. But he also records the details that inflame a desire for vengeance, on any side. I wish I had read this book before I read Englander's "Dinner at the Center of the Earth," because Goldberg is a careful journalist who has lived the experience, paid attention to his prisoners and friends, and who continues to seek truth about Israel and Jews and Palestine and Muslims. We also learn about Druze Israelis, and other people who seem to be politically invisible. Goldberg writes what he knows and sees, without concern for what his readers may think of him or his political positions. His tone is, "I'm human, like all of us." This story is a tribute to every thoughtful person who cares about Israel and Palestine, and especially to Rafiq Hijazi, to whom Goldberg was a prison guard and who had room in his heart to allow friendship to grow between them.
September 24, 2021
I've been reluctant to review this book because the topic is one of those that deeply divides people, including my husband and me. But wherever you are on the Israel/Palestinian issue -- and I, like Goldberg, am a Zionist with serious misgivings about Israel's policies and behavior toward the Palestinians -- this book is one you shouldn't miss. Goldberg was born in Long Island and raised by leftist Jewish parents, and unlike me, he was dedicated enough to supporting Israel that he emigrated there. His mandatory military service included a life-changing stint as a military policeman at one of the prisons Israel used for Palestinians during the first Intifada. Goldberg questioned everything he saw, and developed what proved to be a lasting friendship with one of the Palestinian prisoners. Goldberg eventually relocated back to the United States and became a well known journalist. He has maintained his strong interest in Israel and has met a lot of significant people, including notable Hamas and PLO leaders. And he has retained his questioning, thoughtful approach. This book is enlightening, wry, troubling and surprising by turns. As I said, if you care about this issue, I highly recommend it.
December 15, 2024
Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide is a shallow and self-indulgent memoir that fails to grapple with the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Jeffrey Goldberg’s narrative comes across as one-sided and moralizing, offering little nuance or meaningful insight into the profound divisions it claims to explore.
January 3, 2025
An interesting, educational, and vulnerable account of one person's entry into Zionism and impassioned attempt to befriend and understand the Palestinian experience as well as that of the Israeli's. This book offers good insight into the complexities of Israeli - Palestinian relations and the challenges for reconciliation.
July 3, 2021
Whilst naturally a biased perspective by Goldberg, this story is really well written and helped to introduce and begin to explain what's happening in the middle east. I am grateful that this book found it's way to me, still so much to learn and unpack!
December 23, 2017
Very Perspective .....detailed
August 2, 2009
Jeffrey Goldberg, an acclaimed journalist, writes a stirring memoir describing how he, an unaffiliated Jew, came to embrace Zionist ideals as an adolescent and make Aliyah as a young adult, work on a kibbutz, and then serve a stint in the Israeli army as an increasingly conflicted and disillusioned prison guard overseeing Palestinian prisoners. Jeff writes eloquently and incisively about people he meets and how they flesh out his three-dimensional views of Israel and its problems:
“Gadi, in his normalcy, symbolized a paradox of the kibbutz experiment, and of the entire Zionist experiment. His grandparents came to Palestine with an idea, to make whole the Jewish people, to build ‘New Jews,’ strong and competent and close to the land, like all the other peoples of the world. For them there would be no more hand-wringing and cringing self-doubt. Well, they made Gadi and his generation normal, so normal that they wanted nothing to do with Jews. They were indifferent to the idea that Israel was meant to serve some sort of cosmic purpose, either a universal purpose, as a light unto the nations, or a tribal purpose, as an ark of refuge for lost and suffering Jews…
“The parents, and grandparents, of these young Israelis weren’t much interested in Judaism either, but with one difference: The grandparents were in revolt against texts, parched rituals, and superstitious beliefs of their parents, against the shtetl, against the Diaspora itself. But they at least knew the texts, and knew the rituals. They understood the thing they were rejecting. The grandchildren believed themselves to be in revolt, but they were revolting against nothing. They were rebels in a vacuum created by their own ignorance.” (p. 102)
Although Jeff, as an agnostic Jew with limited interest in his religion, is coming from a very different place than I am, I found these words highly insightful and reflective of the emptiness of a Zionism devoid of religious knowledge and belief.
Most of the story focuses on Jeff’s friendship with Rafiq, a Palestinian prisoner he guards and then arranges to meet up with later when both have finished doing their time in the prison. Not surprisingly, this experience of Jeff’s, together with many others he describes, serves as a microcosm of the greater Arab-Israeli conflict and of many of the internal and external challenges Israel faces.
“…I proposed a scenario to Rafiq: Imagine that it is five years from now and you are a free man, working in Jerusalem, on a building site. You see me walking down the street. I’m in civilian clothing, but you remember me as a soldier of the Israeli army, the army that occupies your land and oppresses your people. Would you kill me if you had the chance?
“To which Rafiq replied, in Hebrew, ‘Come on.’
“No, I’m serious, I said.
“Jeff, this is stupid, he said.
“Listen, I told him, I’m not going to drag you to solitary confinement if you give me the wrong answer.
“He hesitated.
“I was desperate for an answer. I was desperate, though, for the right answer – it was surpassingly important to me. He could, with the wrong answer, tear down the scaffolding of my beliefs, the belief in the power of friendship to bridge the abyss between our two tribes, the belief that I could make him my friend. I believed, with morbid sincerity, that if I could make him my friend, we would together, in some small but consequential way, defy the wicked logic of hate and war, that we, together, would stand as a rebuke to the grotesque idea that our problem was without a solution.
“Finally, he said, ‘Look, it wouldn’t be personal.’” (pp. 35-36)
Jeff’s friendship with Rafiq undergoes many transitions but ultimately appears to develop past this early point; Rafiq later reveals to Jeff that he worries when he hears about a bombing in Jerusalem and knows Jeff is there. Does this mean there is hope for the Arab-Israeli conflict? By the end of the book, Jeff and Rafiq both seem to express tentative optimism on this score, although Jeff doesn’t shy away from exploring the full complexity of this question throughout the book.
Although the narrative dragged occasionally, the book overall was beautifully written and powerful, definitely a worthwhile reading experience. I also give Jeff a great deal of credit for his evenhandedness and honesty. Jeff’s Israeli and Palestinian acquaintances alike earn his admiration and sympathy, or dislike and antipathy, or most often, ambivalence. Neither side is painted one-dimensionally.
Highly recommended, especially to people interested in valuable and personal insights into the Arab-Israeli conflict.
“Gadi, in his normalcy, symbolized a paradox of the kibbutz experiment, and of the entire Zionist experiment. His grandparents came to Palestine with an idea, to make whole the Jewish people, to build ‘New Jews,’ strong and competent and close to the land, like all the other peoples of the world. For them there would be no more hand-wringing and cringing self-doubt. Well, they made Gadi and his generation normal, so normal that they wanted nothing to do with Jews. They were indifferent to the idea that Israel was meant to serve some sort of cosmic purpose, either a universal purpose, as a light unto the nations, or a tribal purpose, as an ark of refuge for lost and suffering Jews…
“The parents, and grandparents, of these young Israelis weren’t much interested in Judaism either, but with one difference: The grandparents were in revolt against texts, parched rituals, and superstitious beliefs of their parents, against the shtetl, against the Diaspora itself. But they at least knew the texts, and knew the rituals. They understood the thing they were rejecting. The grandchildren believed themselves to be in revolt, but they were revolting against nothing. They were rebels in a vacuum created by their own ignorance.” (p. 102)
Although Jeff, as an agnostic Jew with limited interest in his religion, is coming from a very different place than I am, I found these words highly insightful and reflective of the emptiness of a Zionism devoid of religious knowledge and belief.
Most of the story focuses on Jeff’s friendship with Rafiq, a Palestinian prisoner he guards and then arranges to meet up with later when both have finished doing their time in the prison. Not surprisingly, this experience of Jeff’s, together with many others he describes, serves as a microcosm of the greater Arab-Israeli conflict and of many of the internal and external challenges Israel faces.
“…I proposed a scenario to Rafiq: Imagine that it is five years from now and you are a free man, working in Jerusalem, on a building site. You see me walking down the street. I’m in civilian clothing, but you remember me as a soldier of the Israeli army, the army that occupies your land and oppresses your people. Would you kill me if you had the chance?
“To which Rafiq replied, in Hebrew, ‘Come on.’
“No, I’m serious, I said.
“Jeff, this is stupid, he said.
“Listen, I told him, I’m not going to drag you to solitary confinement if you give me the wrong answer.
“He hesitated.
“I was desperate for an answer. I was desperate, though, for the right answer – it was surpassingly important to me. He could, with the wrong answer, tear down the scaffolding of my beliefs, the belief in the power of friendship to bridge the abyss between our two tribes, the belief that I could make him my friend. I believed, with morbid sincerity, that if I could make him my friend, we would together, in some small but consequential way, defy the wicked logic of hate and war, that we, together, would stand as a rebuke to the grotesque idea that our problem was without a solution.
“Finally, he said, ‘Look, it wouldn’t be personal.’” (pp. 35-36)
Jeff’s friendship with Rafiq undergoes many transitions but ultimately appears to develop past this early point; Rafiq later reveals to Jeff that he worries when he hears about a bombing in Jerusalem and knows Jeff is there. Does this mean there is hope for the Arab-Israeli conflict? By the end of the book, Jeff and Rafiq both seem to express tentative optimism on this score, although Jeff doesn’t shy away from exploring the full complexity of this question throughout the book.
Although the narrative dragged occasionally, the book overall was beautifully written and powerful, definitely a worthwhile reading experience. I also give Jeff a great deal of credit for his evenhandedness and honesty. Jeff’s Israeli and Palestinian acquaintances alike earn his admiration and sympathy, or dislike and antipathy, or most often, ambivalence. Neither side is painted one-dimensionally.
Highly recommended, especially to people interested in valuable and personal insights into the Arab-Israeli conflict.
September 4, 2020
Jeffrey Goldberg has written a hugely important book that both investigates the centuries-old crisis in the Middle East and also addresses the wider dilemma of the war on terror in today’s world. Goldberg recounts his experiences with heartwarming and incisive insight. As a journalist, Goldberg has traveled widely throughout the Middle East and interviewed figures as central to the discord as Arafat and Sharon. He has also sat down with militants of Hamas and Hezbollah.
Growing up a secular Jew in Brooklyn, Goldberg visited Jerusalem for his bar mitzvah on his fourteenth birthday. This experience produced in him a transformative passion and a calling to serve the Zionist movement to preserve Israel as the Jewish homeland. After graduation he moved to Israel and selflessly rooted himself in the kibbutz philosophy: a pledge towards a commune lifestyle of backbreaking and farmhand labor. He then served his mandatory duty to the Israeli army, where he found himself stationed as a police guard at the Ketziot prison camp, regarded as one of the most infamous holding grounds of Palestinian militants incarcerated during the first Uprising, the Intifada, in the late eighties and early nineties. At this prison of makeshift tents and endless barbed-wire fences in the remote Negev desert south of Gaza, Goldberg found his personal mission of wanting to understand his Palestinian enemies in a sincere hope of uncovering a solution to the region’s perpetual conflict. Remarkably, he developed a friendship with one of his prisoners, Rafiq Hijazi, a moderate combatant in the Palestinian struggle.
Both Goldberg and Hijazi’s ability to look past their seemingly intractable differences reveals a singular decency that they both believe will serve as the cornerstone for a collaborative peace one day. But the hard answers to the divisive recurrence of violence and hatred in the region allow for no simple resolution for peaceful relations between the Jews and Muslims. Goldberg lays out the injustices and cruelties committed on both sides, and he also dispels the pessimism that the mistrust of the past can never be reconciled. He makes clear that his dream has always been one for protection and security for both Israelis and Palestinians. He brings equal clarity to the darkest and murkiest ideologies of hard-line leaders and shows how the plague of wanton violence becomes their unfortunate motive for retribution, which sadly has led to the countless deaths of innocent victims.
Goldberg’s book serves as a guide to understanding the differences that divide Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. It is also a directive for how to co-exist in a world where multiple faiths pursue the same dream: a preservation of hope among the catastrophic forces of despair. Goldberg shows how terror can be eliminated, how the divide is bridgeable, and how hope can never be dimmed from the human heart. His close friendship with Rafiq, which continues to this day, exemplifies the genuine desire for peace between open-minded Muslims and Jews, even amid the bleakest moments of intolerance. This astonishing book is at once a testimonial history espousing profound personal optimism and goodwill and an essay expressing the highest standard of journalistic reporting. It is a riveting and engrossing narrative. I praise Goldberg for his devotion to the cause of humanity. Prisoners is an unflinching, unsettling, and altogether unforgettable book.
Growing up a secular Jew in Brooklyn, Goldberg visited Jerusalem for his bar mitzvah on his fourteenth birthday. This experience produced in him a transformative passion and a calling to serve the Zionist movement to preserve Israel as the Jewish homeland. After graduation he moved to Israel and selflessly rooted himself in the kibbutz philosophy: a pledge towards a commune lifestyle of backbreaking and farmhand labor. He then served his mandatory duty to the Israeli army, where he found himself stationed as a police guard at the Ketziot prison camp, regarded as one of the most infamous holding grounds of Palestinian militants incarcerated during the first Uprising, the Intifada, in the late eighties and early nineties. At this prison of makeshift tents and endless barbed-wire fences in the remote Negev desert south of Gaza, Goldberg found his personal mission of wanting to understand his Palestinian enemies in a sincere hope of uncovering a solution to the region’s perpetual conflict. Remarkably, he developed a friendship with one of his prisoners, Rafiq Hijazi, a moderate combatant in the Palestinian struggle.
Both Goldberg and Hijazi’s ability to look past their seemingly intractable differences reveals a singular decency that they both believe will serve as the cornerstone for a collaborative peace one day. But the hard answers to the divisive recurrence of violence and hatred in the region allow for no simple resolution for peaceful relations between the Jews and Muslims. Goldberg lays out the injustices and cruelties committed on both sides, and he also dispels the pessimism that the mistrust of the past can never be reconciled. He makes clear that his dream has always been one for protection and security for both Israelis and Palestinians. He brings equal clarity to the darkest and murkiest ideologies of hard-line leaders and shows how the plague of wanton violence becomes their unfortunate motive for retribution, which sadly has led to the countless deaths of innocent victims.
Goldberg’s book serves as a guide to understanding the differences that divide Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. It is also a directive for how to co-exist in a world where multiple faiths pursue the same dream: a preservation of hope among the catastrophic forces of despair. Goldberg shows how terror can be eliminated, how the divide is bridgeable, and how hope can never be dimmed from the human heart. His close friendship with Rafiq, which continues to this day, exemplifies the genuine desire for peace between open-minded Muslims and Jews, even amid the bleakest moments of intolerance. This astonishing book is at once a testimonial history espousing profound personal optimism and goodwill and an essay expressing the highest standard of journalistic reporting. It is a riveting and engrossing narrative. I praise Goldberg for his devotion to the cause of humanity. Prisoners is an unflinching, unsettling, and altogether unforgettable book.
April 24, 2012
Self-categorized on the book jacket as "Current Affairs," this book had me expecting an analysis of Israeli-Palestinian relations, the word "prisoners" in the title no more than a metaphor. In fact, a large part of the book takes place in an actual prison, and while it has much to say about Israeli-Palestinian relations, it is more correctly a memoir of an American Jewish journalist attempting to understand the nature of the conflict that has prevailed in that part of the Middle East since 1948. Finding the political in the personal, he tells of his own beginnings as a youthful Zionist living on Long Island and his years in Israel as his ideals are put to the test working on a kibbutz and then serving in the military police at a desert prison, where he first meets and attempts to befriend a Palestinian prisoner, Rafiq.
Later, working as a journalist based first in Jerusalem and then in Washington DC, the author travels often to Gaza and the West Bank to talk with Palestinians, many of them released prisoners, including his friend Rafiq. His conversations with Rafiq become a commentary on an accompanying account of the interlude of hope for resolution in the Oslo talks, the eventual collapse of the peace process, and the rise of suicide bombings. On both levels, it is a search for common ground that is as elusive as peace itself. The author clings to the hope that where friendship is possible between two men who cannot agree on anything else, coexistence is possible between Arabs and Jews.
This is a well written book that immerses the reader in the deeply bitter and violent conflict that has raged in this corner of the world for decades. The greater part of the book is peopled by Palestinians, each specifically drawn as they reveal themselves to the author, and representing a host of political points of view, from the reasonable to the extreme. Meanwhile, as the author's initial Leon Uris-fed idealism fades, the Israelis themselves are often portrayed as far less than admirable. Leavening the darkness inherent in his subject, the author often finds a kind of grim humor, frequently at his own expense, as he struggles to bring the light of reason to what becomes increasingly a litany of folly on all sides. Very much New Yorker style writing in its use of a personal perspective and its slow-moving, meandering structure, "Prisoners" makes for fascinating and rewarding reading. However, do not expect to be uplifted or reassured by its vision of a world mired in mutual distrust and hatred.
Later, working as a journalist based first in Jerusalem and then in Washington DC, the author travels often to Gaza and the West Bank to talk with Palestinians, many of them released prisoners, including his friend Rafiq. His conversations with Rafiq become a commentary on an accompanying account of the interlude of hope for resolution in the Oslo talks, the eventual collapse of the peace process, and the rise of suicide bombings. On both levels, it is a search for common ground that is as elusive as peace itself. The author clings to the hope that where friendship is possible between two men who cannot agree on anything else, coexistence is possible between Arabs and Jews.
This is a well written book that immerses the reader in the deeply bitter and violent conflict that has raged in this corner of the world for decades. The greater part of the book is peopled by Palestinians, each specifically drawn as they reveal themselves to the author, and representing a host of political points of view, from the reasonable to the extreme. Meanwhile, as the author's initial Leon Uris-fed idealism fades, the Israelis themselves are often portrayed as far less than admirable. Leavening the darkness inherent in his subject, the author often finds a kind of grim humor, frequently at his own expense, as he struggles to bring the light of reason to what becomes increasingly a litany of folly on all sides. Very much New Yorker style writing in its use of a personal perspective and its slow-moving, meandering structure, "Prisoners" makes for fascinating and rewarding reading. However, do not expect to be uplifted or reassured by its vision of a world mired in mutual distrust and hatred.
May 3, 2008
Well-written and debatably educational, Prisoners follows Jeffrey Goldberg's many years in the Middle East - working on an kibbutz after he proudly and "finally" abandons the tri-state Diaspora, boot camp in the Israeli army, working as a military policeman in the Israeli military prison Ketziot (opened after the first Palestinian uprising/Intifada), then in his many travels as a journalist - posing as a neutral American, sincerely befriending Palestinians in a quest to track down former "friends" (read: prisoners) from his time at Ketziot. The sub-titular "story" here is the possibility of friendship between a devout Muslim Palestinian (Rafiq) and a Zionist American Jew (Goldberg), a story which I found much less compelling than the history and politics of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Goldberg was much too aggrandizing about his friendship with Rafiq, at one point assuring himself that peace was possible as long as every Israeli and every Palestinian could make friends with one another. ..... What?? Call me a downer maybe, but that seems a little reductionist.
The main thing I took from this book was an immense feeling of sadness. I think that poverty and death and war and prison and political corruption and discrimination are sad, in any context - not at all specific to the Middle East. I think it's especially sad to hear that people speak unabashedly of a desire to kill (on both sides) - to spill the anonymous blood of a monolithic enemy. This book is definitely worth reading, but don't expect it to be the beacon of hope to which Goldberg (or his editor) aspires.
The main thing I took from this book was an immense feeling of sadness. I think that poverty and death and war and prison and political corruption and discrimination are sad, in any context - not at all specific to the Middle East. I think it's especially sad to hear that people speak unabashedly of a desire to kill (on both sides) - to spill the anonymous blood of a monolithic enemy. This book is definitely worth reading, but don't expect it to be the beacon of hope to which Goldberg (or his editor) aspires.
March 29, 2010
Read this, if you want to better understand Israel/Palestine situation.
Is this a bildungsroman? Liberal American Jew goes to Israel ("makes aliyah") and encounters moral dilemmas. This work is particularly appropriate for anyone who has lived in Israel. Although its moral adventure is traversable by any literate reader, the many linguistic and geographic references to place require a good knowledge of Palestine.
The author is brutally honest with his own shortcomings, and honest about his unrealistic faith in hope itself -- he is trying to "Keep Hope Alive", despite all indications to the contrary.
Today's NYTimes column by Thomas Friedman further reinforces this book's message: Israel today acts as if any peace initiative is worthless, and they are probably right. But we must continue in hope.
Goldberg's quest proceeds over many years -- the timeline is not always clear -- and the gradual withering of each sign of hope is heartwrenching.
It is worth reading carefully through the book to get to his accumulated analysis of the Quran and its baneful attitude toward the Jews; and his insight that fundamentalists are suffering from an inferiority complex (the Quran says Jews are inferior; but Israel has conquered us?).
Is this a bildungsroman? Liberal American Jew goes to Israel ("makes aliyah") and encounters moral dilemmas. This work is particularly appropriate for anyone who has lived in Israel. Although its moral adventure is traversable by any literate reader, the many linguistic and geographic references to place require a good knowledge of Palestine.
The author is brutally honest with his own shortcomings, and honest about his unrealistic faith in hope itself -- he is trying to "Keep Hope Alive", despite all indications to the contrary.
Today's NYTimes column by Thomas Friedman further reinforces this book's message: Israel today acts as if any peace initiative is worthless, and they are probably right. But we must continue in hope.
Goldberg's quest proceeds over many years -- the timeline is not always clear -- and the gradual withering of each sign of hope is heartwrenching.
It is worth reading carefully through the book to get to his accumulated analysis of the Quran and its baneful attitude toward the Jews; and his insight that fundamentalists are suffering from an inferiority complex (the Quran says Jews are inferior; but Israel has conquered us?).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 14, 2012
This book exceeded my expectations tremendously. The writer is a Jewish American, in search of his identity during his youth and takes us thru his travels in the Soviet, kibbutz life, and his service as a prison guard. It is while in prison during the Intifada he comes to meet many prisoners who belong to the Hamas and Fatah. He has many soul-searching conversations with Rafiq Hijazi about religion and politics and despite thier differences they both mantain an uncanny repect for each other.
Amazingly enough thier friendship continues long after the years in prison, through all Jeff's trips to the Middle-east as a correspondent, and Rafiq's time in America as a post-grad student and academic. Together they chart the socio-political landscape thru the years of the Oslo peace process, the Gulf wars and 9/11. Depite Rafiq's orthodox Muslim view and Jeff's support for the Zionist movement their friendship and concern for each other underline hope that peace will prevail.
I'm no expert in the Israel-Palestine issue, but was able to follow the events related here thanks to the eloquent and informative style of the writer. His personal experiences have shed a humane view to very complex issue.
Amazingly enough thier friendship continues long after the years in prison, through all Jeff's trips to the Middle-east as a correspondent, and Rafiq's time in America as a post-grad student and academic. Together they chart the socio-political landscape thru the years of the Oslo peace process, the Gulf wars and 9/11. Depite Rafiq's orthodox Muslim view and Jeff's support for the Zionist movement their friendship and concern for each other underline hope that peace will prevail.
I'm no expert in the Israel-Palestine issue, but was able to follow the events related here thanks to the eloquent and informative style of the writer. His personal experiences have shed a humane view to very complex issue.
December 26, 2012
Really interesting book, a blend of a (factual) memoir and an analysis of the Israel-Palestine conflict, focusing on 1987-2003.
The author served as an Israeli prison guard (technically a "counselor") during the first Intifada, so he interacted with many Israeli soldiers and Palestinian prisoners. He discusses his experience and (sometimes arrogantly) criticizes practices and ways of thinking on both sides of the conflict. After finishing his service, the author stayed in the Middle East as a reporter, and was able to use all of his previous contacts as sources.
This personal access is the best thing about this book: he's able to make the complex, warring ideals come alive through various people (who the reader gets to know) in the book: his own tortured liberal Zionist conscience, more aggressive Israeli policies, militant Palestinian ideas (fascinating discussions with members of Hamas), and more moderate Palestinian ideas (the author's discussions/arguments with the prisoner-turned-friend Rafiq are fun to read). Using the words (and especially stories) of other people allows each opposing idea to be personified: after reading this book, my opinions became more nuanced: while not agreeing with everyone (impossible), I at least have some understanding of each perspective.
The author served as an Israeli prison guard (technically a "counselor") during the first Intifada, so he interacted with many Israeli soldiers and Palestinian prisoners. He discusses his experience and (sometimes arrogantly) criticizes practices and ways of thinking on both sides of the conflict. After finishing his service, the author stayed in the Middle East as a reporter, and was able to use all of his previous contacts as sources.
This personal access is the best thing about this book: he's able to make the complex, warring ideals come alive through various people (who the reader gets to know) in the book: his own tortured liberal Zionist conscience, more aggressive Israeli policies, militant Palestinian ideas (fascinating discussions with members of Hamas), and more moderate Palestinian ideas (the author's discussions/arguments with the prisoner-turned-friend Rafiq are fun to read). Using the words (and especially stories) of other people allows each opposing idea to be personified: after reading this book, my opinions became more nuanced: while not agreeing with everyone (impossible), I at least have some understanding of each perspective.
July 14, 2007
I wouldn't say I greatly enjoyed this book, but I was glad that I read it. Most of it was way over my head, however, and I was more apt to take from it the broader lesson that is to be learned. I also know the author personally, so it was interesting to hear about a range of experiences in his life that I previously was unaware of, told so eloquently. If you are at all interested in the Middle-East crisis, you would definitely have a lot to take from this true to life story.
June 1, 2007
This is a compelling true life tale of an American Jewish journalist's (and former Isreali Military Police Officer) pilgrimage to the front lines of Zionist activism in Isreal. His viewpoints and insights are refreshingly balanced, and the philosophical exchanges with his Palestinian counterparts are extremely lucid.
June 19, 2007
It took me a while to get through the book, but it was interesting. I don't know if I really liked Goldberg. I think that he was kind of stupid or naive, but then again, maybe it's because he was honest about his thoughts throughout the book. I learned some about the Palestinian side of things, but not a lot of new information. I learned more about Goldberg's idealism and how it was deflated.
August 15, 2007
"Prisoners" is a memoir written so well that it could pass for fiction. It is Goldberg's story of dealing with his Jewish identity, his relationship to Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as the people on both sides of the conflict. It is an honest and interesting search for hope in a brutal conflict.
May 12, 2009
Eventually, this book became very illuminating. It took awhile for me to catch on to some of the references he mentions (well, a lot of them, I started taking notes and looking things up later). It did end up being a good source to learn about the conflict in the Middle East & how people feel about it (both sides), and so on. So much more to learn!
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