French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon
In 2019 Friedman published "Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel", the story of four Arabic-speaking Jews who operated an Israeli, pre-independence Zionist intelligence unit, the "Arab Section," in Beirut, then in the territory of the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon towards the end of the British Mandate for Palestine. The book won the 2018 Natan Book Award.