Arab leaders and commanders were locked in a battle with one another to prove their militancy and outdo each other in their hatred of Israel: in the case of the Ba'athist leadership of Syria, Oren argues that war was central to their ideology, while for the Egyptians bellicose rhetoric over Israel was an attempt to gain pan-Arab leadership — even though Egypt did not want a war. Inside Egypt the leadership was dangerously split, with different factions using anti-Israeli rhetoric as a way of faction fighting inside the regime. As a result, there was no effective way for the Arabs as a whole to use their numerical superiority in a multi-front war while the armed forces of the biggest Arab state were caught between confusing orders and strategies.