According to Carl Brown, conflicts in the Middle East tend to follow a certain pattern. The first step in this pattern is the combining and continual shifting of alliances of regional and extra regional political players. Alliances began forming before the attack on Israel. In fact, the idea of a Jewish homeland was denounced since the turn of the century. Furthermore, the Arab League (Iraq, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt) placed a boycott on Jewish companies in 1945. The region was fully aware that war was approaching. Consequently, on March 15, the Arab League attacked Israel. The intention was to push the Jewish people out of Jerusalem and to back their Palestinian-Arab neighbors. Israel had no true military ally in the beginning of the war. Knowing that this war decided the future of their Jewish state, however, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) quickly grew. In this respect, the alliance in Israel was an internal one. According to Brown's pattern, both the Arabs and the Israelis were combining power and searching for regional alliances.
Consistent with Brown's pattern, the next step is the entrance of outside forces which in turn overcomplicates the issues. An arms embargo is put in place by the US in 1947 as an attempt to appear neutral, but in theory, the US was backing Israel. Israel was receiving weapons from Czechoslovakia, most likely because of Czechoslovakia's high Jewish population. (Bard 149) The US was becoming increasingly aware that they would have to support Israel not just because of the Jewish lobby in the US, but also because of the dependence of oil and the need for calmness in the "oil world". The entrance of the US in the conflict would be imperative to the direction the Arab-Israeli conflict will take in the future. At this point, however, the US was not directly supplying either side with weapons. In July of 1948, however, Israel bombed Cairo using three B-17 bombers bought through the black market from the US, securing air dominance in the region.