But since the people of Israel were not numerically strong enough to win these regions for Israelite nationality, and since a compact body of Israelitish inhabitants existed on the highlands south of the plain of Megiddo to the southern margin of the Dead Sea, and these parts accordingly became the nucleus of the kingdom of Israel; the latter bore the seeds of destruction within itself from the beginning. And there was another factor to add to the difficulties of the situation: before the regions which afterwards formed the nucleus of the Israelite state had passed into the whole possession of the immigrants, before the fusion of Canaanite, Hebrew, and Arabian families with the tribes of Israel was everywhere complete, before, that is, they could contemplate the conquest of the coast, two other claimants of the land west of Jordan appeared on the scene. From the northeast, Aramæan tribes pressed forward as far as Anti-Lebanon, from the southwest came the warlike nation of the Philistines. Like the Israelites, they both amalgamated with the original Canaanite population of the territory they conquered. They, and not the Canaanite population of the coast, were for centuries the real adversaries of the state of Israel. Nay, the nation was first called into being by the danger that menaced it from the Philistines. Thus the strength of the Israelite nation was exhausted in the struggle for the possession of the land west of Jordan. A people less tenacious, less valiant, less persevering, would never have maintained its national existence so long under the circumstances. By holding its own against Philistines and Aramæans, and succumbing only to the onset of the great Asiatic empires, Israel gave proof of its high capacities in the sphere of politics.