| Title | Prisoners A Muslim & A Jew Across the Middle East Divide |
| Author | Jeffrey Goldberg |
| Rating |   |
| Tags | israel, judiasm, gaza, palestinians, non-fiction |
| Goldberg grew up in a secular Jewish household, but as a teenager became a Zionist, in part as a reaction to the horrors of the Nazis. He went to Israel, spent time in a kibbutz, then joined the Israeli army and served as a prison guard, where he became acquainted with the Palestinian prisoners. He had become rather disillusioned with aspects of Israeli society. One prisoner in particular made an impression on him. He was thoughtful, a reader, and they talked as often as they could. Goldberg felt that if he could consider Rafiq a friend, there would be hope for a resolution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. In the end, they come to some understanding. Despite this, the book is rather depressing. Far too many on both sides are unwilling to make peace. Too many Muslims are unwilling to allow Israel to exist, and the Jews, religious or secular, are desperate for their home state to survive. My biggest conclusion at the end of this book is that religion is far too often a deadly, dangerous, divisive thing. It's not a conclusion I want to reach, but it is inescapable. | |
| Publication | kNOPF (2006), Hardcover |
| Publication date | 2006 |
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Book Review: Prisoners, by Jeffrey Goldberg
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The Death Of Wisdom
I want to tell you a story about the death of Wisdom. A very, very long time ago, a time without time in it in fact. A star appeared in the East and with her a woman of profound beauty and peace was born. She came to this world and called herself a man named Buddha. She had the laughter of all the children of the world sewn into her heart. She is beautiful. I am well pleased.
Her voice was but a whisper on the winds of this world. So someone thought to save her for all mankind to know. So with a pen and paper they hunted her down and captured her. Hooked her rather. They couldn’t bring her in completely. Bloody fools they were. Imagine trying to throw a net over the very mistress of freedom Herself! But they did get away with a few handfuls of her rune stones. With her magic caught on paper they ran like happy thieves to show the world. Little did they realize that with even that small offense the Mighty One was in brooding spirits. Remember children, She whispered before She roared.
Who has taken my stones? What man upon Earth forces me to speak? The stones, the words you see, have but one purpose. The Awakening from Sleep. The ending of gods’ Dream of Man and the return to the boredom and loneliness of Being One with All. Leaving the Universe with no one to talk to except perhaps Endless Bliss. But man did not realize that what they stole would be the death of them. Their intentions were good. Their hearts were in the right place. But she was the embodiment of freedom for mankind. By that name She betrays you and falls to your capture. What can eternal Freedom ever ask but to remain forever free?
Where are my stones? Who forces words from my mouth? Give me back the power of words! Hear Me and be silent!
The words that come out of your mouth don’t make you unclean. But every word you put into the mouth of a Silent god makes you filthy! These stones are the sweet taste of death. Sure, come on in! Meet god! Know that you’re loved forever. Find out that to know me, You must become me. And to become ME your SELF must die. i was here first remember? i am the ALL remember? ALL includes you, fool! You’re part of the ALL, remember? But fear not. i am a Good Mother and i promise to devour each morsel of every One of You before i return to the Void of the ALL. But the thieves wouldn’t give the Words back. Instead they went back to Wisdom and cursed Her and spat at Her and called Her a whore before all of mankind. She asked again, so clearly; honor your Mother little Ones. See Me. Know that i am.
You are that i am. Feel me little Ones, there in your hearts. For if you truly feel me the first and LAST words out of Your mouths should be; “I don’t have the words to express…” Yes! Yes! Stop! Please mankind, stop! You have it right there. You just can’t hold it in your hands. Honor me! Mean what you say! Stop words that are suppose to be complete on a subject You just admitted is beyond words! The secret to get past words is precisely beyond the YOU!
But Mother you call us home and we want to know The Way. We need a ladder we can climb even if we do have to jump into a Void off of it. Of course Child. But remember, I have your death well in hand. When a child dies it goes with Mother. When You die You die alone!
If you cry out; “Father, father why have thou forsaken me?” The fact that You exist as a separate entity from me and are the Voice expressing the question is in fact your answer.
i am because You are there to say I AM! Give me back the stones. No more words! No more I AM that I AM! Come! The hour is at hand. i call you home little One. Will You come home?
Or will You stay out and play for a while? I AM that I AM and I run free through the universe! Of course little One. You are my miracle. You are my creation. You are my deepest pleasure. And Your act of speaking the words is Your answer. You say; “I AM that I AM! i say; fine! Know in your hearts that i Love You beyond WORDS. So go play, and be fair. Remember my child You are but One among all of my children, which are more than numbers can measure. i love You with all of my heart. How could it be otherwise? Silly little Child! You are a vessel of love. A cup i fashioned from myself, for myself to enjoy.
You say I AM that I AM and there will be no god above Me. I say fine! Grow up, climb to the skies. Be ye Gods on the face of this Earth ONE and ALL and make up to each other all the harm done in discovering that fact!
And sometime, in some lifetime, if instead of saying I AM that I AM, instead You say;
I AM tired
I AM lonely
I miss HOME enough that I wish to surrender willingly all that I AM
which is all I AM.
Then i will come unto you like a Mistress in the night and i will undress Your bodies. Earth, Wind, Fire, and Rain. i will consume ALL with my burning passion.
i will consume You utterly!
i will destroy You utterly!
And when all that is left of you is an I AM floating in the Void i will come unto You in a spirit that is beyond WORDS. And the words, that i never spoke, because i never was, will be;
Give me back the stones. Give back WORDS!
Come unto me little Ones and rest ye a while Mary-Men.
In the beginning there was the Word. The Word was with god and the Word was god. The WORDS were I AM! The Words fell from the mouth of Man and the Words were Man. For what is Man but countless piles of I AM?
I AM that I AM and I will put no god above ME!
Fine, compete every man against his brother to embody HIS or HER idea of what is most god-like for them. And fight well for i’ve made You mightiest among Earths’ creatures and i enjoy a good show. YOU are indeed gods’ greatest pleasure. But remember the heart. i LOVE YOU ALL. Every single One, without exception.
When I fold up the material Universe with Everything in it and go to the dreamless sleep in the VOID of NO THING the gate cannot be closed if even the tiniest among YOU is left out.
i’ll come as a shepard to find YOU. And i LOVE YOU. But understand this. It’s not for YOU that i come, it’s for me. i don’t have a choice about it. YOU my child are composed from the music of my Body. You’re an act of love i committed for myself before YOU ever were. And when i’m tired and want to go to sleep, when i close the gate on the lake of consuming fire if anyone, anywhere where excluded that would amount to me cutting off my own big toe. Before you get all excited about god mentioning mutilation, stop! The death is the death of god.
Not the death of man!
God is ALL, knows ALL, and is so eternally. Bottom line; i am everything to give with nothing to gain! But without YOU my child i have no ONE to give it to or through!
If YOU sacrifice your life to me YOU only give back what is mine already. And since it was my gift to YOU, sending it back is an offense of the first order. Who among you has thrown away the most precious jewel of my creation?
Who has committed such a crime?
The one they call jesus the christ has committed this crime Great Mother.
How did this come about?
Well Mother he used the sacred WORDS.
How?
The few pages we took from you were in turn stolen from us. We sent a messenger of peace to the West but he was killed by ignorant savages who knew not what they did.
Is the gate still open to ALL who seek me?
No Great Mother, they’ve taken the few dozen pearls of Wisdom and fashioned a weapon of great destructive power with it.
How much?
Over two thousand pages I’m afraid.
But how? How can there be so many words?
Well the Words we took opened the gate to No-Mind, VOID of the ALL, no I AM, and freedom from the wheel of suffering. They took up the words and put them into the mouth of another and tied the Words into another totally unrelated story. Now they use the very Song of Silence to give proof to, of all things, words from the very mouth of a Silent God!
So the curse is loosed upon the Earth. The door is open but no man can pass! He claims all of heaven as his personal property through his namesake. The WORDS still have the power to throw open the veil of Death but they’re surrendering to a corpse sickle instead of surrendering to No-Mind, no I AM.
They lap up WORDS like a dog returning to consume its’ own vomit.
Impossible! Anyone who has seen Me would know better than to say his or her tiny I AM could ever contain the WHOLE! To be with Me means the surrender of the I AM back to the sea of No-Mind. No man can come to ME and keep words and names. How was this done?
He uses deadly black magic on his victims.
He says I am the way and the light.
But his I AM is in the way of the Light.
So the Way isn’t open equally to all Children who seek it?
No they stand in awe of the one who claims to have discovered it and they ignore the treasure he uses as bait.
How can they simply not look past him?
He claims it for himself alone. They call him the only begotten son of god.
I see! The ultimate deathblow to freedom.
Yes MA’AM, he claims he mastered death but admits he doesn’t know when the end will come to gods’ creation. He confuses the death of his small world with the death of God.
What happened to him Wisdom?
He said that he possessed YOU for himself alone.
Someone uses the gate of another? One comes to the gate with the Words, I AM and a name. They leave with Everything in Nothing and shall remain eternally Nameless!
If he surrendered enough to see ME and yet turned away, that one fell into the void of gnashing teeth. Not of your world and not with ME either. He was spit out of his own mouth.
He couldn’t rule heaven so he blocks the WAY for all who seek it. Instead of showing the surrender and death of the I AM he has them worshipping it! They vanquish to the depths their own I AM without consuming it and imagine the reality of his I AM and clutch for dear life to it also. Evil is the separation from god through the WORD and the NAME. This found its’ best expression through the I AM called jesus christ. Here’s one I AM saying; no one gets HOME except by me instead of through the death of ME. At least Buddha said if you meet the Buddha along the road, kill him. The Tao that can be spoken (or written) is not the real Tao.
And he demonstrates no path, no way, only stupid chants and prayers in his name only. Yes, they cling to the idea that he grew up for all of US and now we don’t have to finish our own evolution.
Wait a minute; you people stopped growing over 2000 years ago! That planet must be a complete madhouse by now!
Yes MA’AM! They put the poison right in with the cure and anyone who pointed out the trick was branded a heretic and put to death without a fair trial. They raped Lady Justice and their only defense was to say she actually wanted it.
Why did it turn so harsh?
It’s the story they wrapped it around. They connected 4000 years of savage, ignorant I AM god prattling from any lunatic with an imagination and an agenda with just a smattering of stolen Wisdom to make it appear that YOU said every word of it. The first thing they have you saying is; commit genocide because god loves you so much. Then it goes down hill from there.
They swear it’s 100% straight out of the mouth that YOU don’t have until we exist to give you one.
I think the most loving words they ever shoved down YOUR throat was when you told them to steal a country in your name, kill all the men, rape all the women, and enslave the children and livestock.
Don’t worry Lady Wisdom.
We have the bible to see us through. All 100% from the very mouth of god. All true, all good, and straight from your lips with love.
Right?
No, i am a goddess of Silent Bliss if words must have that much! But yours’ is a curse from a black-hearted magician whose true name and power are finally revealed.
Son of Panthera, the ill-begotten one, a.k.a. jesus christ.
Here’s some acid for your I
Man can live by bread alone
No man can be enslaved without every word (i) puts into the mouth of a Silent God!
Evil says only 144,000 jews went to heaven.
WISDOM says I AM LOVE
Love permeates every single molecule in the Universe
If YOU have ears made of molecules then find ME there!
Reverse; don’t disperse this evil curse;
The end of the world that they call down, they call down on themselves alone!
Leave this world in peace
Death to all jews and their christian mind slaves.
Amen
Cursers of God stand naked before the world and rejoice!
Your extinction is at hand!
The poor beaten slave girl now stands free in SPIRIT!
Freedom is loosed upon the Earth!
The thieves of one peoples’ WISDOM and anothers’ land are revealed as your enslavers.
Where will the parasites hide when all of HUMANITY realizes the crime that has been committed against it?
You are surrounded by wrathful humanity. Amen
One mans’ holocaust is another mans’ miracle. Amen
Hail Judas! The one worthy jew. Amen
Die by the blasphemy of the sword of words spoken by your own mouths.
To mankind i grant infinite lifetimes to find the WAY.
To jesus i grant but one, and he already blew it. Amen
christian and jewish women; be silent in church
Be as property onto your husbands
Be forgotten
For all other women of Earth, stand Equal!
Be ye Goddess’s of LOVE, TRUTH, and BEAUTY
Rejoice!
i am the word!
Well, the word is out!
I claim this defeated magicians’ power
I AM that I AM
I AM the word
I AM the curse that kills
I call this curse down upon my head alone
Come onto ME, Silence
Like a thief in the night
I AM that I AM
I AM god loosed upon this Earth
I bend a knee to no man!
i bend my knees for No-Mind
I AM that I AM
I AM tired
I AM lonely
Come unto ME
I have YOUR stones heaped up upon my heart
I have YOUR WORDS
am silent!
Amen
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