"A catastrophe has befallen us!" - these were the words expressed by the secretary of the Arab League following the decision by the Arabs to invade Palestine on 15 May 1948. Who caused the Arab countries to participate in a war in which they had no interest, and why did they fight? What did King Abdallah say to Golda Meir during their secret conversation in Amman on the eve of the war? Why did the Arab efforts to release the Egyptian soldiers from the siege at Faluja fail? How did the Jewish prisoners live in the prisoners' camp in Trasnjordan and how they were finally released? Both these and other questions are answered in the book: Cooperation and Hostility: Abdallah, the Arab Legion and the 1948 War, which examines the rule of the Arab Legion during 1948 war. The book explains King Abdallah's intentions towards Palestine as well as considering his political and military moves. The book also analyses the cooperation between the Arab armies during the war, and the British aid to Transjordan and especially to the Arab Legion during this war. With the aid of British, Israeli and Jordanian documents the author presents in a clear and comprehensive manner the establishment and development of the units of the Arab Legion including the military intelligence and the Air force which were exposed for the first time in this book.

This issue of "Hamizrach Hachadash" contains 11 articles. The articles deal with Law and Society.

This book illustrates the close link between the development of the national ideal in Egypt, and the development of the new written Arabic, and studies the Academic activities in Cairo following the historical and social changes in the Arab world in the 20th Century.