Friday, October 06, 2006

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

From Slate.com

Prisoners is the story of a redheaded Jewish boy from America—Jeffrey—who becomes a staunch Zionist, immigrates to Israel, lives on a kibbutz, and joins the Israeli armed forces, where the book really begins. Jeffrey serves as a military policeman and is charged with the unfulfilling duty of guarding Palestinian prisoners in the Ketziot prison during the first intifada, the Palestinian uprising of the late '80s.

In Ketziot, he befriends Rafiq Hijazi, a Muslim from the Jebalya refugee camp. The friendship between these two men and the many obstacles and barriers that both of them must overcome in the next 15 years or so—the years of the Oslo peace process and the years of the second, more bloody, Palestinian uprising—are the core of the book. It takes the reader to Jerusalem, Gaza, Jericho, Pakistan, Africa, Washington, Abu Dhabi, and many other places. It deals with the fundamental dichotomy of two men who like each other personally but belong to two rival tribes.

Boiling down the book this way raises the basic question: Can a Palestinian Muslim and a Zionist Jew be friends? In this first note, I want to focus on something at the end of the book—the positive, optimistic answer it gives to this question: "[I]f Rafiq and I could allow friendship to triumph over anger, then it wasn't impossible to believe that the rest of Isaac's children, and the rest of Ishmael's children, could stop their long and dismal war."
Read the whole article (worthwhile, in my view)

4 Comments:

At 11:38 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Where are your readers? Lets see the expert at Developing a Web Presence can't even get a reader.

All I see here is failure and excuses.

 
At 12:01 PM, Blogger Gert said...

The following leaked CENTCOM telex has come to our attention and may be of interest to you:

+++++++++++++++++
Classified as: COSMIC SECRET - F.Y.E.O. - DESTROY ON RECEIPT
+++++++++++++++++
From: CENTCOM

CC: George W. Bush
+++++++++++++++++
Subject: AGENT COVER BLOWN:

Agent: Beakerkin (AKA Bleaky, Bleacher, Bleachy, Beakercunt, Beakerfart, Beakerpoop, El Beak, Beako, The Beak. etc)
Dept: http://thebeakspeaks.blogspot.com
+++++++++++++++++
Message:

It appears Agent Beakerfart's cover has been blown wide and his REAL first name is MICHAEL (repeat: MICHAEL). He is now also known as St. Mickey the Comical Commie Slayer.

This message must not fall into the hands of Stalin or the Iwanians.

End of message.
++++++++++++++++++

 
At 12:13 PM, Blogger Da Weaz said...

Beaker moron still trolling again saying the same damned thing. Beaker gets housewives and unemployed to troll on his site all day posting mindless gibberish and thinks that he's got a real hot spot going.

Beaker didn't get hired for moron position, even though he passed a test showing that he was a full fledged imbecile. Very few can score so low, as to make the cut.

Rock on, moron. Rock on! The inability to construct more than five coherent sentences may explain both why you're a Bush myrmidon, and, more importantly, can't get laid. Go figure.

Maybe you can become a Foley intern. He might need one to help him fend off his "admirers" in the pokey.

And maybe it'll help snap your string of bad luck in realms amorous.

 
At 12:13 PM, Blogger Da Weaz said...

By the way, the book sounds interesting. Thanks for the tip.

 

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