The best of enemies: Israel and Transjordan in the war of 1948

The Arab-Israel conflict, certainly from the establishment of the State of Israel until the signing of the peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, has often been described as 'pure', in the sense that the contenders are deemed to have almost irreconcilably opposing interests. Such an approach is particularly evident in perceptions of the war of 1948. On the one hand, the Israelis stubbornly persist in the belief that seven Arab armies set out to destroy the State of Israel immediately upon its establishment - an absolute aim surely characteristic of conflict of a 'pure' nature. On the other hand, among the Arabs, belief in the terrible injustice caused to the Arab world by the establishment of the State of Israel, and the need to eradicate that injustice, is as powerfully rooted.