Journalist-Prison Guard to Address Israeli-Palestinian Divide

In the Israeli wilderness not far from Kadesh-Barnea, the site where the Tanakh says Moses angrily struck the rock and incurred God`s displeasure, is another place ruled by anger: Ketziot, a sprawling Israeli military prison. It was at Ketziot that a young, idealistic American named Jeffrey Goldberg served a tour in 1990 as a guard in the Israeli army.

An award-winning writer, Goldberg has reported from Africa, Afghanistan and the Middle East for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and currently The Atlantic, where he is a national correspondent. Goldberg will offer his views on the Middle East on Jan. 27 at Temple Micah as part of the series on Israel at 60.

When he arrived at Ketziot 17 years ago, Goldberg thought he could advance the peace process by working to understand the Palestinian prisoners and by giving them an opportunity to exchange views with a young American Jew.

"I was perhaps the most naive Jew in the Middle East," he would say later. His time at Ketziot is described in his book, Prisoners, A Muslim & a Jew Across the Middle East Divide. The title refers not just to the prisoners and guards described in the book, but to how Arabs and Jews are imprisoned by years of mutual hostility and suspicion.

Time and experience have made him far less optimistic than when he first arrived at Ketziot.

"We're years and years away" from the ability to have meaningful negotiations on the core issues that divide Israelis and Palestinians, Goldberg said in a brief conversation last month.

"How do you negotiate with someone who's having a civil war?" he asked. For that reason, he said, the recent conference in Annapolis was "predestined to be ineffective."

At the same, he said the United States can play a role in bringing the parties together, even if only to "pedal in place."

Goldberg said it was necessary to "convince the Palestinians to have that conversation about who they are" and for the Israelis to confront the destructive impact of their settlements policy.

What role might Hamas have in future negotiations?

"I don't see how you negotiate with a party that believes the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is true," Goldberg said.

In an interview on The Atlantic Web site, Goldberg described a luncheon with one of the religious leaders of Hezbollah.

"He was a real sullen kind of fellow," he said. "I asked him this very American question. I said, `What do you hope to gain from having a better relationship with the United States of America?'

"He started laughing. He said, `Why do you assume we want a better relationship with the United States of America?'

"I started thinking on the fly. I said, `Well, we're nice people once you get to know us, and there's obvious material and political benefits from having a relationship with the sole remaining superpower in the world.'

"And he said, `You don't understand. We don't want to be friends with you. We want to beat you.'"

"I had an unusual job at Ketziot," Goldberg wrote in his book. "Most soldiers were forbidden to talk to the prisoners. But I was a `prisoner counselor.'" In that role, he had extensive conversations with prisoners.

"The Israelis were generally less interesting to me than the Palestinians. Israelis I knew. Palestinians I didn't--I asked them questions ceaselessly about their politics, their beliefs and desires, their families. I poured out questions about child-rearing and bomb-making and the menu for the Ramadan breakfast."

Prisoners taught him Yiddish and chided him for his poor command of the language.

Goldberg developed a close relationship with Rafiq Hijazi, a prisoner from Gaza.

"He had a capacity for self-criticism, for looking at his national movement and finding the flaws in it," Goldberg said. Years after Goldberg left Ketziot, he and Hijazi resumed their relationship when the Palestinian came to Washington to attend graduate school. They remain in contact to this day, mostly through e-mail.

In the book, he describes two conversations with Hijazi, one chilling, one hopeful.

The first was at Ketziot. Goldberg asked Hijazi if, at some point in the future, he saw his former prison guard walking down the street "would you kill me if you had the chance?"

The Palestinian was reluctant to answer.

"Jeff, this is stupid," he said.

But Goldberg persisted and finally Hijazi said, "Look, it wouldn't be personal." Years later over coffee, Goldberg told Hijazi, "When I hear about something terrible happening in Jebalya, my first thoughts are of you and your father."

"It's the same thing for me," replied the Palestinian. "When I hear that there is a bombing in Jerusalem and I know you're there, I get worried."
[By Don Rothberg; from January 2008 Vine]