Based on his reading of top-secret files of the Israeli police and the prime minister's office, Hillel Cohen exposes the full extent of the crucial, and, until now, willfully hidden history of Palestinian collaboration with Israelis—and of the Arab resistance to it. Cohen's previous book, the highly acclaimed Army of Shadows,told how this hidden history played out from 1917 to 1948, and now, in Good Arabs he focuses on the system of collaborators established by Israel in each and every Arab community after the 1948 war. Covering a broad spectrum of attitudes and behaviors, Cohen brings together the stories of activists, mukhtars, collaborators, teachers, and sheikhs, telling how Israeli security agencies penetrated Arab communities, how they obtained collaboration, how national activists fought them, and how deeply this activity influenced daily life. When this book was first published in Hebrew, it became a bestseller and has evoked bitter memories and intense discussions among Palestinians in Israel and prompted the reclassification of many of the hundreds of documents Cohen viewed to uncover a story that continues to unfold to this day.

Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. Beginning a Beautiful Friendship: The Rise of the Collaborator Class
2. Communists vs. the Military Government,
Collaborators vs. the Communists
3. Boundary Breakers: Infiltrators, Smugglers, Spies
4. The Land
5. The Battle of the Narrative: Symbols, Pronouncements, Teachers
6. Minorities within a Minority: Dilemmas of Identity
7. Circles of Control, Circles of Resistance

Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Hillel Cohen is Research Fellow at the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaborators with Zionism 1917-1948 (UC Press), The Present Absentees: Palestinian Refugees in Israel since 1948, and The Marketplace is Empty: The Rise and Fall of Arab Jerusalem 1967-2007.

"A fascinating story. . . . With the publication of this book, we can abandon several accepted clichés."—Ha'aretz

"While many Israelis—Jews and Palestinians alike—already had a sense that these shadowplays were part of the state's history, Aravim Tovim (Good Arabs) supplies the evidence. Case after case is summoned to illustrate how collaboration permeated all aspects of Palestinian society."—The Nation

"The impressive achievement of this timely book is its equal and honest treatment of the explosive issues involved in spite of an often agonizing conflict of interests—and its articulation of the author's findings with empathy, boldness and fairness."—Jerusalem Post