The final days of The Palestinian Conservative?

It seems that The Palestinian Conservative, or, to be more fair and accurate, The Paleostinian Conservative, since the magazine is not only about seeking the destruction of Israel and demonizing neoconservatives, but also runs legitimate and useful conservative and paleoconservative articles from time to time, is in financial trouble and will close soon in the absence of a major infusion of cash. I had thought that the California millionaire Ron Unz was keeping the magazine going financially, but evidently he has withdrawn.

TPC was founded seven years ago by Patrick Buchanan, Taki, and, the main force behind the magazine, its then and present editor, Scott McConnell, who among other things approvingly quoted the statement that Mary the mother of Jesus was a “poor Palestinian woman”; wrote a cover article claiming that the only thing standing in the way of Mideast peace was the Israelis’ motiveless malice against the Palestinians; and published an article by a British leftist claiming that “the fanatical terrorist, the stone thrower, the suicide bomber,” were “images” that had been produced by neoconservative “Arabophobes.”

Many worthwhile articles by good conservatives have been published in TPC. In every issue, there would be one or two decent pieces that might have appeared in any conservative magazine. And of course there is a need for journals where conservative writers can get their work before the public. But the fact remains that TPC from its inception has been a project motivated at its core, not by a belief in truth or by any conservative vision of society, but by resentment and hatred. I cannot mourn its passing.

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David B. writes:

A few days ago, I received my copy of [The Palestinian Conservative]. There was a notice inside that without an infusion of funds, the May 7 issue would be the last and [TPC] would go out of business.

Gintas writes:

Then it’s a good thing I haven’t renewed.

It was definitely a mixed bag, at best. You summed it up nicely when you said it wasn’t driven by a vision of preserving Western Civilization as much as by axe-grinding.

LA writes:

Over the years I have employed a variety of nicknames for the inappropriately named The American Conservative, such as The Anti-American Leftist and The British Leftist. Such names came from the fact that the magazine was indeed openly anti-American,—for example, it once featured a cover cartoon showing Uncle Sam as a demented homicidal maniac attacking the world—and published many writers of the left, including lots of Brits, whose only point of commonality with this “American” and “conservative” journal was their (standard-issue leftist) animus against Israel and the United States and their support for the Palestinian cause. The nicknames I tried out from time to time were irreverent and let off some steam, but none was good enough for continued use. Then a few weeks ago I thought of The Palestinian Conservative, which I liked the best of all, and I’ve used it several times since then. But when preparing this entry for posting today I came up with a further variation, The Paleostinian Conservative, a combination of “paleoconservative” and “Palestinian,” which I think is the perfect name for that magazine. Unfortunately, I only thought of it when the magazine is about to go out of existence after seven years of publication. Talk about l’esprit de l’escalier.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 29, 2009 10:10 AM | Send