“This book can be read on two levels. One is the series of public issues that Natan Sharansky addresses with strong conviction: his belief that Palestinian democracy must precede Palestinian statehood; his consequent opposition to the Oslo agreement and the Gaza withdrawal, then to the Iran nuclear accord; his euphoria at the airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel; his distress at the rise of anti-Semitism and at the religious and political rifts among Jews in Israel and the Diaspora. The other level is more significant, at least to me, having known Natan for about forty-five years. It is the personal and intellectual journey that he describes as he explains himself. Here is an exceptional man, schooled in Soviet doublethink, then finding his Jewish identity and his ideology as a free-thinker, separated from his new wife for a dozen years and locked for nine in the Gulag before rising to high Israeli leadership. Trauma victims know that recovery often depends on good people’s support. That he had, giving him power to make from his suffering a lodestar that guides his judgments. You might disagree with him here and there, but you cannot help liking him, because you cannot help looking through the issues into his heart of idealism.”
—David K. Shipler, former New York Times bureau chief in Moscow and Jerusalem and author of seven books, including the best-selling Russia: Broken Idols, Solemn Dreams and the Pulitzer Prize–winning Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land
“Those of us who have been political prisoners wonder: ‘Yes, we have exited our cell, but does it ever leave us?’ After ten years it is still with me—and while reading this very impressive book I felt the same from my friend, Natan Sharansky. For me, his art expresses my deep feelings.… Just as we broke the lock to go out of the cell, we have to break out of the political box of thinking to solve the problems of the Middle East. So, yes, I agree with the book’s message, we need democracy throughout the region, along with mutual economic programs, to make real peace.
“This book is a very important social and human message for peace and civility in the Middle East. We are partners and will continue to struggle together for the future of our region. That is our historical duty as peoples of the Middle East and also our personal responsibility, hand by hand, to send this message. That is what has been done in this book, and I have the honor to thank you, my very dear brothers: in this struggle, you will never be alone.”
—Dr. Kamal Allabwani, founder of the Syrian Liberal Democratic Union and Syrian Prisoner of Conscience, 2001–2011