July 10, 2003
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From: Mitchell Young [email him]
So much for the VDARE.COM as a one-issue website. By publishing Robert Locke's piece advocating the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the West Bank, VDARE.COM has made itself vulnerable to (even more) criticism - over an issue and policy that is most tenuously related to immigration issue.
I can see the newspaper articles now. Just as every piece on Le Pen contains the line, "Le Pen, who once called the holocaust a 'detail'...," every media report on VDARE.COM and/or PB will feature, "the site once advocated the violent expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank"—or words to that effect.
Nor will Locke's article go down well with those on the Left who might be persuaded on the immigration issue, and whose support is necessary if immigration reform is to become reality. The Palestinian cause arouses sympathy, both in Europe and in North America, from some of the very people who might support us in our drive to stop mass migration.
Maybe VDARE.COM is attempting to mend fences with the Jewish community, but somehow I don't think the mini-cons will be beating the drum for immigration reduction any time soon.
I would like to think the piece was published in an ironic spirit. After all, Israel is an "immigrant society," although all the immigrants must be of the correct religion. The Palestinians' problem is that they were powerless to stop Jewish immigration in the Ottoman and Mandate periods and were thus displaced from their own land.
As an admirer of Leo Strauss, perhaps Locke is sending an esoteric message to 'Anglos': Take control of immigration policy from your rulers now, lest someday a pundit advocate your 'transfer' out of the newly independent Aztlan.
Peter Brimelow comments: Many readers objected to Robert Locke's article. (E-mail him directly if you want to object some more.)
But we did not publish it because we agree or disagree with Locke's position on Zionism: we published it because it is a case study of a nation-state faced with an alien minority. As Mitchell Young points out, the plight of the Arabs under the Ottomans and the Mandate is also a case study. Our single-issue point: immigration has consequences. Ethnic differences have consequences. Something can be done about them.
