By Hillel Cohen | Translated by Haim Watzman | University of California Press | 280 pages | $27.50In 1965, when I was living in the new town of Arad in the Judean desert, my wife and I invited Mansur Kardosh, the secretary of Al-’Ard (The Land), an illegal Arab political party, to lunch. Kardosh, who had been exiled to our town for the period of the general election campaign, turned out to be a pleasant gray-haired man, who presented strong Palestinian nationalist principles with a winning charm and humor.Such views were rarely voiced in those days, and we found his ideas interesting and challenging, but the thing that struck us more than anything else was his gratitude. He praised us extravagantly for our modest hospitality. Later when we enjoyed a delicious lunch with him and his wife Yvonne in their Nazareth home, we were introduced to friends and neighbors as “the couple who invited me in Arad.” Subsequently, in my book Walking Through Israel, I wrote: “At the very most I was risking mild social disapproval by inviting this ‘Arab extremist’ to lunch, but, in his paranoiac state at the time, what he termed my ‘humanitarian gesture’ seemed to him an example of civic courage on a par with that of a Solzhenitsyn or a Sakharov.”Today, after reading Good Arabs by Hillel Cohen, I find myself wondering whether I wasn’t being too flippant about my behavior and his response. Over the years as a journalist and author, I have written extensively about Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line, but I admit that I had not realized the extent of Israeli penetration and control of Israel’s Arab citizens in the early years of the state.Cohen’s Army of Shadows described Palestinian collaboration with the Zionists in the pre-state period. The present volume deals with the first 19 years of the state. When it was published in Hebrew in 2004, The Jerusalem Post reviewer called it “an impressive achievement” and praised it for “its equal and honest treatment of the explosive issues involved.”I can only echo this accolade: Cohen paints a remarkably balanced and comprehensive picture of the complex relationship between Israel’s Arab citizens and the authorities. It is a fascinating tale, but his account of espionage, patronage, bribery, treachery, deception, smuggling, infiltration, intimidation, threats, double dealing – and often murder – does not make for pleasant reading. Neither we Israeli Jews, nor our Arab fellow citizens, can take much pride in the story.
Missed opportunities
Hillel Cohen’s account of Israeli Arabs during the first 19 years of the state is a fascinating tale, but it does not make for pleasant reading.
By Hillel Cohen | Translated by Haim Watzman | University of California Press | 280 pages | $27.50In 1965, when I was living in the new town of Arad in the Judean desert, my wife and I invited Mansur Kardosh, the secretary of Al-’Ard (The Land), an illegal Arab political party, to lunch. Kardosh, who had been exiled to our town for the period of the general election campaign, turned out to be a pleasant gray-haired man, who presented strong Palestinian nationalist principles with a winning charm and humor.Such views were rarely voiced in those days, and we found his ideas interesting and challenging, but the thing that struck us more than anything else was his gratitude. He praised us extravagantly for our modest hospitality. Later when we enjoyed a delicious lunch with him and his wife Yvonne in their Nazareth home, we were introduced to friends and neighbors as “the couple who invited me in Arad.” Subsequently, in my book Walking Through Israel, I wrote: “At the very most I was risking mild social disapproval by inviting this ‘Arab extremist’ to lunch, but, in his paranoiac state at the time, what he termed my ‘humanitarian gesture’ seemed to him an example of civic courage on a par with that of a Solzhenitsyn or a Sakharov.”Today, after reading Good Arabs by Hillel Cohen, I find myself wondering whether I wasn’t being too flippant about my behavior and his response. Over the years as a journalist and author, I have written extensively about Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line, but I admit that I had not realized the extent of Israeli penetration and control of Israel’s Arab citizens in the early years of the state.Cohen’s Army of Shadows described Palestinian collaboration with the Zionists in the pre-state period. The present volume deals with the first 19 years of the state. When it was published in Hebrew in 2004, The Jerusalem Post reviewer called it “an impressive achievement” and praised it for “its equal and honest treatment of the explosive issues involved.”I can only echo this accolade: Cohen paints a remarkably balanced and comprehensive picture of the complex relationship between Israel’s Arab citizens and the authorities. It is a fascinating tale, but his account of espionage, patronage, bribery, treachery, deception, smuggling, infiltration, intimidation, threats, double dealing – and often murder – does not make for pleasant reading. Neither we Israeli Jews, nor our Arab fellow citizens, can take much pride in the story.