Book: “Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide”

This book was published in 2006 by Jeffrey Goldberg and it is about two men who met in 1990 during the first Palestinian uprising. One was an American Jew who was a prison guard in the largest prison in Israel, while the other was his prisoner, Rafiq, a who was a rising leader in the PLO. Despite their fears and prejudices, they began a dialogue there that grew into a remarkable friendship—and now a remarkable book. It is a book that confronts head-on the issues dividing the Middle East, but one that also shines a ray of hope on that dark, embattled region. Prisoners is an account of life in that harsh desert prison—mean, overcrowded, and violent — and of Goldberg’s extraordinary dialogue with Rafiq, which continues to this day.