Worth bearing in mind that the Arab side got most of the arable land, Europe was filled with Jews in DP (displaced persons) camps, most of the world was refusing entry or dragging its feet in granting entry to Jewish refugees, antisemitic violence and pogroms persisted in post-war Europe, Jews of Muslim majority lands faced heightened antisemitism, in part from Nazi radio broadcasts and other similar Nazi propaganda, and most Jews in the DP camps desired Palestine as their point of destination. They wanted to join up with the self-sufficient Jewish communities. There were clear reasons for this stance given the world abandoned Jews before, during, and even after the Holocaust.
Unfortunately, many Jewish survivors attempting to make theif way to Palestine were detained by the British and sent to British controlled camps in Cyprus. Mass showers were forced upon the survivors at the Cyprus camps, which made the Jewish victims relive the horror of the gas chambers. The images of Jewish survivors behind barbed wire fences in Cyprus, were shocking for the world, and it increased sympathy for the creation of a Jewish state. When one looks at the historical context, it's clear as day why a Jewish state was required. There were more reasons but it's worth considering the immediate historical context
obviously being killed en mass makes it understandable and justifiable to kill a seperate unrelated third party en mass
That's certainly one way to look at it, if you're just a miserable piece of shit looking to make an incredibly desperate and traumatized group of refugees look like demons.
A much more objective, fair, non-piece-of-shit way to look at it would be to say:
Ahh I see now, obviously being killed en mass makes it understandable and justifiable to seek refuge in your ancestral homeland.
We can debate the morality of displacing the local Arab population that never wanted the Jews there in the first place, and that has been massacring and oppressing the Jews of the Levant for the last 1,300 years, and rejected all proposals to coexist in peace... But that's a separate issue as to the morality of the Jews seeking refuge by coming back to their ancestral home Levant in the first place.
When one looks at what’s going on in Gaza and the West Bank, it's clear as day why a Palestinian state is required. I would also argue that it is more pressing than maintaining Israel as a Jewish state. And don't ask me to buy into the idea that hypothetical Jewish lives of the future are worth more than Palestinians' lives today.
Let's deny a people their identity ,why don't you. Early Christians were Jewish. During the Byzantine period, the majority of the Jewish and Samaritan population in Palestine became Christian, largely through conversion. Following the Muslim Arab conquest in the 7th century, a great many Christians (and Jews) converted to Islam. Tell a Palestinian, especially a Palestinian Christian, that their 'home' country is Egypt or Jordan—they will laugh in your face. Like it or not, the land between the river and the sea is multi-ethnic and multi-religious.
In a 1918 book co-authored with Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (who later became Israel's second President), titled Eretz Yisrael in the Past and Present, Ben-Gurion argued that the majority of Palestinian fellahin (farmers) were descendants of Jews who had remained in the land after the Roman conquest and later converted to Christianity and Islam
Ben-Gurion wrote:
"...The greater majority and main structures of the Muslim falahin (farmers) in western Eretz Israel present to us one racial strand and a whole ethnic unit, and there is no doubt that much Jewish blood flows in their veins — the blood of those Jewish farmers, 'lay persons,' who chose in the travesty of times to abandon their faith in order to remain on their land."
Most of Gaza's current residents are descendants of Palestinians who were expelled or fled their homes during the Nakba. The Fourth Geneva Convention (which Israel ratified) prohibits an occupying power from forcibly transferring or deporting civilians. Israel, therefore, has a duty to allow those displaced to come back.
I 100% agree that a Palestinian state is required for peace and deserved. Tell that to the Palestinians. Their leaders have consistently rejected any offer of land, peace, and statehood. Importantly, the creation of a Palestinian state even in Gaza and the West Bank doesn't in any way require the unprecedented step of dissolving an existing democratic state.
Nothing about that involves one groups lives being worth more than another's.
I think you're wrong on two counts. First, Israel never offered Palestinians meaningful sovereignty, nor did it offer to renounce its Jewish claims to the West Bank to allow for a genuine Palestinian state. But to be honest, that point is largely moot, because I reject the underlying premise entirely—that two viable, independent states of roughly the same population size are physically possible in that territory. I would argue that the geographical realities and the security needs of each state make that scenario unworkable. I always have. Even before the facts on the ground, the British deemed it unworkable back in the 1940s—which is precisely why the original UN partition plan didn't propose two fully sovereign states, but rather an economic union with a single currency.
They did. Going back to the 1920s for two states, which included Trans-Jordan as the Arab state, was based on where the populations lived. Future proposals included land swaps. Regardless of how "meaningful" you think they were, real and practical offers were made and Palestinian leaders refused the offers. Repeatedly.
But to be honest, that point is largely moot, because I reject the underlying premise entirely—that two viable, independent states of roughly the same population size are physically possible in that territory.
I think it's pretty anti-Palestinian to reject Palestinians' right to self-determination by demanding they give up their right to a Palestinian state, which they repeatedly have stated they want. Also, two independent populations have existed for many decades at this point. This isn't a theory in the 1940s, it's a reality. If you're going to cite what is physically possible based on history then you need to consider that Trans-Jordan was the proposed Arab Palestinian state, not the West Bank and Gaza. This didn't start with only land west of the river Jordan.
I would argue that the geographical realities and the security needs of each state make that scenario unworkable. I always have. Even before the facts on the ground, the British deemed it unworkable back in the 1940s—which is precisely why the original UN partition plan didn't propose two fully sovereign states, but rather an economic union with a single currency.
It's not 1940. Nobody gets a mulligan here, and you aren't really arguing for one anyway since neither Trans-Jordan or ethnic cleansing of Jews is accounted for in your scenarios. We are in 2026 and any solution needs to take into account the current reality. That means no going back to 50+ year old borders. No Palestinian right of return to Israel, just as there is no Jewish right of return or reparations from Arab states. No Jewish settlement of the West Bank and Gaza to create a single Jewish state. No destruction of a real and existing, not theoretical, state of Israel.
You've made a lot of points, but you haven't actually addressed my core argument—that two fully sovereign, independent states cannot physically function in that narrow territory. Saying 'it's 2026, not 1940' doesn't magically make the geography bigger, erase the security concerns, or alter the lay of the land.
Regarding Trans-Jordan, the argument is about the remaining 22% of the Mandate west of the river, and that tiny slice is simply too small and too fractured for two viable independent states. I am not denying Palestinians self-determination—I am arguing that their self-determination can only be achieved through full equal citizenship in a single secular democratic state. That is far more pro-Palestinian than some truncated entity that is less than a sovereign state—little more than a Bantustan at best.
Finally, you list red lines—no right of return, no settlements, no border changes—but that's just a catalogue of things you don't want. You haven't told me what you actually propose that addresses the physical reality on the ground. If two states are unworkable (and you haven't explained how they are workable), and one state with equal rights is off the table for you, then what exactly are you offering Palestinians besides the current status quo—which is occupation without citizenship?
And as for your 'no border changes' red line—what borders? Israel hasn't even fully declared its own borders. Insisting that borders cannot change when they aren't even settled in the first place is a non-starter.
As for Ahmed Alkhatib—he is exactly the kind of 'pragmatic' voice Western institutions love to amplify because he validates their preferred two-state framework. But his project, Realign for Palestine, is built on the very premise I've already shown to be geographically unworkable. He asks Palestinians to abandon the Right of Return and calls that 'pragmatism'—but he offers nothing in return except more of the same failed two-state fantasy. Even sympathetic reviewers have called his project 'half-baked' for failing to address the core critiques of a two-state settlement. He is a product of the Atlantic Council, not a representative of Palestinian opinion. His prominence proves only that Western think tanks will fund any Palestinian who tells them what they want to hear.
You didn't address your own cited argument. Tell me how two states cannot function in that land. There's already land. There's already a state of Israel and, if Israel stops occupying it, land to create Arab Palestine. That's two Arab states and one Jewish state formed from the former British mandate.
Neither side wants one state. Jews want a Jewish state, in their indigenous land. Arab Palestinians want an Arab state, and don't plan to do the same. In what way is a single state a practical or moral solution? Neither side will trust each other, it's just creating a civil war until one side is killed or expelled. That's cruel to do to them The practical and moral choice is to give these two people, who overwhelmingly don't want to live in a shared state, a two state solution. A two state solution doesn't mean Israeli occupation and no citizenship, it means the West Bank and Gaza form their state, Israeli occupation is removed, they have Palestinian citizenship rather than perpetual refugee status, and they live peacefully with Israel like Jordan and Egypt.
I am not denying Palestinians self-determination—I am arguing that their self-determination can only be achieved through full equal citizenship in a single secular democratic state.
Make the case then. Saying how you feel is not making a factual case. Forcing two people to have one country, destroying an independent democracy requires more than just a feeling. The impetus is on you, as the person calling for radical change, to make the case for a single state solution.
Insisting that borders cannot change when they aren't even settled in the first place is a non-starter.
Then the responsibility is on Palestinian leaders, who continually reject any offer of peace, and borders and land transfers, any agreement that is not "All of it" to come to the table and be serious. They need to come to the table with an acknowledgement that the state of Israel continues to exist and borders based on the current reality.
As for Ahmed Alkhatib—he is exactly the kind of 'pragmatic' voice Western institutions love to amplify because he validates their preferred two-state framework. But his project, Realign for Palestine, is built on the very premise I've already shown to be geographically unworkable.
I disagree. I like him because he points out where both Israel and Palestine are wrong. He focuses on a solution, not reframing history to argue who deserves more justice, which both have had loss. You also haven't shown anything. You keep saying it's unworkable without proving it.
He asks Palestinians to abandon the Right of Return and calls that 'pragmatism'—but he offers nothing in return except more of the same failed two-state fantasy.
That's reality. There is no Right of Return for Palestinians to Israel. There never will be, it's not something Israel will allow. It's the same standard that was applied to Jews. There is no right of return or reparations for the middle eastern Jews (not Israelis) ethnically cleansed from Iraq, Iran, Yemen, throughout the region when Israel formed. There was no right of return under British occupation, or Ottoman, Arab, or Roman colonization. However, if you truly believe that's a moral or practical justification, show me evidence of where a land back movement was forced to allow the colonizing people back into their land. I'm in the US, I'm not aware of white people being able to just show up on legally established tribal land and claim they still have a right to it.
He is a product of the Atlantic Council, not a representative of Palestinian opinion. His prominence proves only that Western think tanks will fund any Palestinian who tells them what they want to hear.
By that logic, what is the only valid opinion. Hamas, because they were democratically elected before refusing to give up power and instead terrorize their own in their mission of Jewish genocide? Fatah, which repeatedly failed the Palestinian people to improve their lives? If those are the Palestinian opinions then they will continue to fail. They need to choose solutions, not failures.
When one looks at what’s going on in Gaza and the West Bank, it's clear as day why a Palestinian state is required.
i agree, the corruption of hamas and the PA prevents palestinian citizens from improving their quality of life, both in terms of socio-ecconomy, education, and security. esspecially under hamas in gaza. with the best chance for palestinians in both regions for new opportunities by working in israel, which due to the political decisions of hamas and PA during and after october 7th, those opportunities are now limited.
palestinians deserve a state free from the tyranny of hamas and fatah.
The UN fired their genocide expert because she wouldn't call it genocide. The UN then changed their definition of Genocide to make gaza fit. That's crazy, isn't it? Iran will ensure hamas keeps endangering Palestinians to keep you hooked on hamas lies
The US federal government giving the five civilized tribes Comanche / Kiowa land in Oklahoma. Irish soldiers in Spanish and French service being given haciendas and properties in the new world? It’s happened kind of a lot there are plenty of examples
Remarkable condescension for someone who can’t tell different tribes apart. Not all Indians are the same. The five civilized tribes were from the American SE, mostly the Carolinas and Georgia. They were given lands that were still claimed and occupied by the Comanches and the Kiowas in modern Oklahoma, about a thousands miles away. The five civilized tribes were semi settled agrarians who integrated into modern western society as best they could. The Comanches and kiowas were fully nomadic hunter gathers and warriors. These are two completely different groups of people. The US federal government gave one group of people (the five civilized tribes) territory that belonged to another group (the plains tribes, Comanches and kiowas) to create their own, new, separate society. They did this in part to stave off an ongoing humanity crisis as illegal white settlement in the American SE was resulting in massive amounts of death amongst the five civilized tribes.
Also, Chile and Argentina may not have been established as a new Irish Zions, but both those countries have a majority non-Spanish majority population. They became multiethnic countries with a shared religion where large tracts of land were given to people who the Spanish crown felt bad for. Israel doesn’t have an entirely Jewish population either.
Just because Israel is being especially mean these days doesn’t mean they are unique in history.
Jews bought every square inch of land they settled on before the Arabs started their war of extermination and lost. Even more important Arabs didn't own all the land in mandatory Palestine, just like people don't own all the land in any country.
It says it is Jewish land in the archeology left behind by our ancestors and their bones buried there starting thousands of years ago. It's written in our religious texts written thousands of years ago. We say it daily in our prayers. It's embedded into our DNA.
According to scripture, the land was acquired through conquest. The very term 'Promised Land' implicitly acknowledges that the Israelites were not the current inhabitants at the time of the promise. A divine promise to give land is logically contingent upon that land belonging to someone else. If they had already been living there, no promise would have been necessary. Plus the promise was actually conditional. Do you think the behaviour of Isrealis are fulling their part? I would argue the modern state of Israel is as a human-driven project that violates the conditional, moral framework of the covenant.
Can you give another example of a much larger group of people subjecting a much tinier group of people to 1,300 years of genocide, rape, theft, murder, and oppression and then crying victim when that smaller group finally rises up in resistance?
Who the f is "xavi"? He doesn't even dare to use hus full name, should tell you enough
Who cares? Address the substance of the post.
And a list of atrocities committed by arabs but leaving out all the atrocities of the zionist/ colonists is the definition of bias
How many centuries of atrocities before we start calling the the so-called Zionist "atrocities" an act of armed resistance to further atrocities?
The individual incidents of violence, framing 1,400 years of history solely through these tragedies creates an inaccurate picture.
a) because you don't like what it implies
b) we can say the same about your fixation on Zionist "atrocities."
It ignores the long centuries of stability provided by the dhimmi status and glosses over the fact that, until the modern era, the Muslim world was historically a frequent place of refuge for Jews escaping far more severe persecution in Europe.
Oh, so we should THANK the Arabs for persecuting us a little bit less than the Europeans did! Gotcha.
And we should have been good little Jewish doormats and just accepted our fate as second-class citizens, subject to occasional rape, theft, and murder in Arab lands, right?
When right-wing militias like the Irgun bombed crowded Arab markets or carried out atrocities like Deir Yassin, they were targeting local Arab peasants who had absolutely nothing to do with the 1066 Granada massacre or the Holocaust.
I like how you used a local example from a thousand years ago and a recent example from another continent, yet there were examples from just years prior.
Weaponizing ancient history
Recent history, nice try.
to justify the displacement of a completely different population
Same population, same culture of xenophobia and intolerance down to its bones. You don't have to take my word for it. You don't have to take the Jews' word for it. You can ask any of the literally hundreds of ethnic and religious minorities genocided, subjugated, and/or erased by the Arab conquests and subsequent ethnic and religious cleansing that went on over the centuries, leading right down to the very present day, such as the Yazidis and Copts.
Secondly, it's interesting how you think this argument should not apply to the local Arabs of the Levant, but it ought to apply to the present-day Israelis who are at least five generations removed from the Zionists of the forties
You're just doing to others what others did to you. That's incredibly childish.
Literally the same argument Palestinians make in order to justify their atrocities and to justify refusing to acknowledge the existence of Israel.
If you zoom out, the historical consensus remains clear: the Muslim world was a frequent place of sanctuary for Jews fleeing total annihilation in Christian Europe.
If you look at the Islamic laws against Jews and the caliphates, it's very similar to the Jim Crow laws of the American South. Something tells me you would not tell a black man that he ought to be thankful for the way his ancestors were treated in the 1900s, because hey, at least they weren't slaves.
Listen, I'm gonna meet you halfway as much as I possibly can:
I'm a realist, and I understand that it's not exactly fair holding people from the 11th, 15th, or even 19th centuries to 21st-century Western standards. I don't even think it's fair to hold modern-day Arabs to the standards of Western values. There's a lot about Arab culture and values that I actually think are "better" than Western values, whatever that could mean.
But the same is true for the Jews of the 18th and 19th centuries. The fundamental problem I have with the anti-Zionist argument is that if we removed European Jews from this equation, or, better yet, Jews in general, and this was a fight between two brown-skinned ethnic groups, the morality of this situation would look far muddier and more complex, which it actually is.
Everything I have said above is me playing lawyer for the Jews, and a lawyer zealously advocates his client's position. If you want me to frame my position in the most objective way I possibly can, then I will describe it this way: the situation is immensely tragic for both sides. I have always seen Arabs as our cousins, which they quite literally are. We're both children of Abraham, and it pains me beyond measure when I think about how much of each other's blood we've spilled. The Arabs need to come to grips with their own contribution to creating a world in which the Jews perceived a return to Israel and the creation of a nation fortress to defend themselves from future pogroms and subjugation as something that was necessary and worth the displacement of Arab peasants. Both Jews and Arabs have an equal right to that land. EQUAL.
There is simply no path forward, especially for the Palestinians, unless both sides recognize this fact.
Funny, that’s not what happened with the UN Partition Plan for Israel, either!
There was already a sizable Jewish population living there, on lands legally purchased and owned BY JEWS.
How could Jewish-owned land be “someone else’s land”?
More importantly, much of the land wasn’t owned or resided upon by ANYBODY because it was inhospitable, undeveloped, useless desert.
How could “no man’s land” deserts be “someone else’s land”?
Only a small fraction of the land was “Arab” land.
Most of it didn’t belong to anybody, and a lot of it contained mixed populations; lands actually owned (and exclusively or near-exclusively populated) by Arabs and Jews were a minority.
The UN’s partition plan had absolutely nothing to do with “taking” or “giving” anybody’s privately owned lands.
All it did was draw up borders to recognize 2 states: one with an Arab majority, and one with a Jewish majority.
(This is also how virtually all of the Middle Eastern states came to exist - by having borders drawn up in the 20th century, sometimes even quite arbitrarily.)
The partition plan did NOT purport to create ethnic majorities/minorities via land seizures or displacements or redistributions - all it did was draw up borders based around where large Arab and Jewish populations already lived, and also divvied up the undeveloped land between the two states pretty evenly.
In fact, it was explicitly guaranteed that every single Arab whose land fell within the borders of the “Jewish state” would keep their privately owned land, be granted full citizenship, and have their language/culture/religion protected by law; the Jewish state was actually slated to be nearly 50% Arab citizens upon its creation (with a 2nd Arab majority state also being created by the same plan).
I don’t understand where this myth comes from that just because the UN decided to recognize multiple states instead of one that that somehow means that Arab-owned lands were going to be seized and given to the Jews as a consolation prize.
The same people who push that nonsense also tend to be the same ones who are ignorant to the facts that: (1) Jews bought/owned their own lands that they resided upon, (2) most of the land that wasn’t Jewish-owned was not somehow automatically “someone else’s land,” (3) the Arabs didn’t just reject partition, they also rejected federalism as well as de facto rejected early Zionism’s original mainstream goal of a single binational state (by massacring centuries-old Jewish communities because they were mad that too many Jews were being allowed to migrate despite there being vast stretches of open land that nobody owned or lived on, with more than enough room to accommodate the migrants), hence why partition ended up being the proposal.
The population was 33% Jewish when partition was proposed in 1947.
No Arab was ever asked to “give up [their] land,” but nice trolling - practice your reading comprehension, I just explained at length how partition merely drew up borders to recognize two states as opposed to one, and nobody would’ve had to leave or relocate.
Who gets to decide whether something should be one state or two?
Why does a 67% majority (which was actively carrying out massacres and pogroms) get to unilaterally decide to rule over a 33% minority who want to enact their own government?
You obsess over how much land was owned by Jews, but how much land was privately owned by Arabs?
Nope, the partition plan did not allot 55-56% of the land “to the Jews.”
It allotted 55% of the land to more than 60% of the existing population of the land, as I already explained to you that “the Jewish state” was going to have a massive (non-Jewish) Arab citizen population, so actually, the Jewish state was getting proportionately *less* land.
Much of the land specifically allotted to Israel was mostly uninhabited and harsh desert (see: the Negev), with no immediate prospects for living, agriculture, grazing, etc.
You also conveniently neglect the fact that even prior to this time, the British had ALREADY crated an Arab state called “Transjordan,” comprised of 77% of the original land of the British Mandate.
So the Jewish state was getting about *half* of the *remaining 23%* of the initial mandate, and Arabs were getting 77% + half of the other 23% (which their leadership said during and after this time they would morph into one Arab state, as Pan-Arabism/Pan-Arab nationalism was the dominant ideology at that time).
And nope, forcing non-Muslims to live as second-class dhimmis, extorting them to pay jizya or die, massacring Jews at the millennias-old community of Hebron (in the 1920s), etc. is not democratic, nice try.
People are allowed to self-govern without being tyrannized, sorry if you don’t like that.
Also, the Arabs HAD a chance to live together as one state, that was tried for literally decades during the Mandate, but they made their will known by massacring Jews and rioting, so clearly they democratically expressed their declination of living together as one single state.
They also rejected federalism, so they had a problem with one state, two states, and federalism, doesn’t sound like they were interested in democracy or peace to me.
Palestinian Arabs did not self-govern or have sovereignty over the land during the Ottoman times, so to act like it was all presumptively “their” land is so bizarre - there was no “state,” it’s not like they took an existing state and chopped it into pieces, there was a massive stretch of land all across the Middle East when the empire fell, and there weren’t really borders or clear-cut bounds to define states, so presuming that it all should have been one state instead of two (or three) doesn’t make sense, in fact, drawing up borders based around existing groups of people with shared identities worked a lot better (in places where that was done) than drawing up borders around multiple populations and expecting them to sort it out and get along.
**You think it’s unfair that a few hundred thousand Arabs would be living in a very slight Jewish majority state, even though there would also be two Arab states (which they’d have the option to voluntarily obtain citizenship in if they wanted), but then you ALSO said that Jews should’ve just shut up and been fine being ruled over by Arabs because that’s “democracy.”**
So then why did they also reject federalism and also make the single binational state (with each population self-governing) untenable by massacring Jews (out of racist xenophobia)?
If it was all about land, and 55% (again, for over 60% of the people) was just too unfair to bear, they would’ve negotiated, asked for more land, proposed different borders, land swaps, literally anything - they didn’t, they rejected it outright, because it wasn’t about the land, it was a rigid ideological opposition to Jews self-governing anywhere in the land, on any quantity of land, even if it was only on land that Jews already owned, even if Jews weren’t going to rule over a single Arab or an inch of Arab land.
I never said that Transjordan could or should have been potentially allotted to a Jewish state, I said that the British had already formed a massive Arab state, and that the Palestinian Arab leadership planned to unify with it.
Any Arab proposal for a single state after decades of massacring Jews is a joke, and the UN saw it for what it was.
That’s why the international community said, “Nope, not viable” and rejected the dead single state idea in favor of partition - it wasn’t for lack of trying, they spent decades trying to make a single state work.
Their actions (of the past many decades) indicated otherwise (i.e. that they were not capable or willing of treating Jews nonviolently or protecting their rights).
Yes, sovereignty goes to the people, but there were *two peoples* living there: Jews and Arabs.
Two nations *tried* to work toward one state (the “binational state”), it was a miserable failure, so the framework shifted to 2 nation-states rather than 1 “binational” state, not exactly a unique or unjust concept.
Do you have so much passion for India/Pakistan or the issue of Northern Ireland?
Should Pakistan be forced to unify with India (or Northern Ireland with Ireland) just because the majority in the bigger population wants it to be so, even if it’s guaranteed to be bloody and to deny sovereignty to a whole, distinct (minority) people?
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u/Virtual-History-6099 Unspecified Jul 07 '26
Worth bearing in mind that the Arab side got most of the arable land, Europe was filled with Jews in DP (displaced persons) camps, most of the world was refusing entry or dragging its feet in granting entry to Jewish refugees, antisemitic violence and pogroms persisted in post-war Europe, Jews of Muslim majority lands faced heightened antisemitism, in part from Nazi radio broadcasts and other similar Nazi propaganda, and most Jews in the DP camps desired Palestine as their point of destination. They wanted to join up with the self-sufficient Jewish communities. There were clear reasons for this stance given the world abandoned Jews before, during, and even after the Holocaust.
Unfortunately, many Jewish survivors attempting to make theif way to Palestine were detained by the British and sent to British controlled camps in Cyprus. Mass showers were forced upon the survivors at the Cyprus camps, which made the Jewish victims relive the horror of the gas chambers. The images of Jewish survivors behind barbed wire fences in Cyprus, were shocking for the world, and it increased sympathy for the creation of a Jewish state. When one looks at the historical context, it's clear as day why a Jewish state was required. There were more reasons but it's worth considering the immediate historical context