In May 1948, the prime minister Mahmoud El Nokrashy Pasha advised against going to war with Israel, saying the Egyptian Army was not ready for war. However, King Farouk overruled him, as he feared the growing popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was clamoring for war with Israel. Farouk declared that Egypt would fight Israel as otherwise he feared the Muslim Brotherhood would overthrow him. The war with Israel ended in disaster with the Egyptian Army fighting very poorly and Edmond Galhan of the king's "kitchen cabinet" making a fortune by selling the Egyptian Army defective Italian Army rifles left over from World War II, a matter which greatly angered many Egyptian officers. Though the defective rifles were not the only reason why Egypt was defeated, many Egyptians came to be fixated on the issue, believing if it were not for Galhan, then Egypt would have been victorious. It was after being defeated by Israel that the Abdeen Palace incident of 1942 started to be viewed in Egypt as an abject, contemptible surrender, which showed Farouk's cowardice and general lack of leadership.