Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror [Paperback]

Jeffrey Goldberg (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 15, 2008 | Series: Vintage

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Not a light read, this memoir of the author, an American-bred Zionist, and his 15-year relationship with a Palestinian insurgent is bound to have detractors, in part because New Yorker Washington correspondent Goldberg is painfully honest—about his dreams, limitations and anxieties. "I wanted to... have it all," he writes, "my parochialism, my universalism, a clean conscience, and a friendship with my enemy." Goldberg lived in Israel as a college student, sharpening the contradictory emotions shared by many of his American peers and eventually watching his former certainty crumble under the weight of military service at Ketziot, an Israeli prison. Grounded in his relationship with a prisoner, Goldberg's book travels from Long Island to Afghanistan as he struggles to understand Israeli-Palestinian violence. His honesty is itself high recommendation; the book is also marked by beautiful turns of phrase and a forthrightness that saves it from occasional self-importance. Some readers will argue with some of Goldberg's assertions (such as his reading of Israel's offer to Arafat at Camp David), and the author's halting recognition of the role despair plays in shaping Palestinian thought. Like the warring nationalisms it presents, his book is complex and deeply affecting. (Oct. 9)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* With the Middle East ablaze again, a lasting resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems more distant than ever. So this timely and hopeful memoir reminds us that decent men of goodwill can strive to bridge even the widest gulf. Goldberg is an American-born Jew raised in a liberal, nonobservant family. He "discovered" Zionism in adolescence and immigrated to Israel as a young man. He had romantic dreams of fighting to defend the Jewish homeland. Instead, he spent his military service as a prison guard at Ketziot, a bleak desert jail where Palestinians, many who fought in the first Intifada, were warehoused. Goldberg provides incisive observations of various aspects of Israeli and Palestinian societies, including the decline of the kibbutz movement, ideological divisions between Fatah and Hamas, and, of course, the grinding monotony (for both guards and prisoners) of prison life. But the core of this story is Goldberg's evolving friendship with a prisoner named Rafiq.^B At first, they reach out warily toward each other, but the genuine warmth and affection that grow surprise and even unsettle them. Their friendship endures, even after Rafiq is released and returns to the political hothouse of Gaza while Goldberg becomes a journalist. Goldberg has no illusions that he and his friend, working at the "subatomic" level, have solved seemingly intractable larger problems, but his poignant account offers the possibility of reconciliation. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (January 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375726705
• ISBN-13: 978-0375726705
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #776,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #13 in Books > History > Middle East > United Arab Emirates

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Engrossing Book February 20, 2007

By Linda H.

Format:Hardcover

"Prisoners" is an engrossing book on many levels. It is a personal story about the author's evolution from an idealistic adolescent into a realistic, principled man, while simultaneously serving as a lucid chronicle of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Historical references abound, written clearly so that the reader does not need extensive background in order to understand complex issues. The writing is wonderful, with vivid scenes, memorable characters, and quite a bit of humor. The book begins in 2001, and after a suspenseful end to Chapter I, flashes back to the first Gulf war when the author, serving in the Israeli army, guarded Palestinians in an Israeli prison camp. The narrative moves seamlessly through time and across continents, detailing the tenuous friendship between the author and one of his former prisoners. I had to keep reading, and found the ending hopeful and very moving.

All in all, it is one of the best books I've read in a long time. It is Mr. Goldberg's first book, and I hope he writes many more.

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Friends of sorts . . . April 9, 2007

By Ronald Scheer

Format:Hardcover

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.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars deeply personal and informative June 12, 2007

By mbrandi

Format:Hardcover

not only is this book deeply personal to the author but also to this reader.He put into the words that I never could the feeling that I have for Israel and the Jewish People.He explains Zionism for what it really is and means and not for what the pc crowd has twisted it to be.

Having also had dialogue with a muslim that I called friend for over more than 40 years I can attest to the great divide between us.it is hard for most people to understand that different cultures do not think alike regardless of what facts are presented.

other readers have found hope in this book which I am afraid I do not share.