With increasing persecution of European Jews, the outbreak of World War II and continuing violence in Mandate Palestine, Magnes realized that his vision of a voluntary negotiated treaty between Arabs and Jews had become politically impossible. In an article in January 1942 in "Foreign Affairs" he suggested a joint British-American initiative to prevent the division of Mandate Palestine. The Biltmore Conference in May that year caused Magnes and others to break from the Zionist mainstream's revised demand for a "Jewish Commonwealth". As a result, he and Henrietta Szold founded the small, binationalist political party, Ihud (Unity).