"This rhetoric also erases the presence of Christian communities, or even Christian Arabs as myself, and Christian Palestinians that are deeply involved in numerous pro-Palestine solidarity movements across North America. By singling us out and other-ing us as terrorist sympathizers, Kinsella spotlights his own apathy through his selective outrage."
December 9, 2024
To the Editor,
Warren Kinsella’s recent op-ed lamenting society’s desensitization to cruelty falls short due to factual inaccuracies, but more importantly due to his rhetorical biases, and his selective application of empathy.
Kinsella is right to highlight legitimate antisemitic incidents, such as the recent Melbourne synagogue arson attack that clearly targeted Haredi Jews in Australia. While he correlates this incident with other attacks on synagogues since the events of Oct. 7 when Hamas broke out of the Gaza strip and attacked Israel, his narrative ignores the broader spectrum of suffering following these series of events.
Following Oct.7, Kinsella’s own history of dismissing Palestinian experiences and equating pro-Palestinian activism with antisemitism contradicts his call for empathy.
This is evidently seen in Kinsella’s own speculative link between the Melbourne arson and pro-Palestinian activism which is not supported by evidence. Through this apathetic framing, Kinsella once again defames a marginalized community in the process.
Likewise, his portrayal of Columbia University protests also reinforces his growing public record of Islamophobic remarks. Rather than contextualize the event centered on opposition to Israeli defense investments at the university by student protesters, he frames them through Islamophobic rhetoric and erasure.
Suggesting that the protesters are Hamas lunatics that want to cancel Christmas, as well as statements like “they come for the Saturday people first, but then they always, always come for the Sunday people,” is also extremely sensationalized rage-bait aimed at harming the image of the movement.
This rhetoric also erases the presence of Christian communities, or even Christian Arabs as myself, and Christian Palestinians that are deeply involved in numerous pro-Palestine solidarity movements across North America. By singling us out and other-ing us as terrorist sympathizers, Kinsella spotlights his own apathy through his selective outrage.
It’s no wonder Kinsella’s rhetorical house is ablaze. By fueling the fire with divisive rhetoric and factual errors, he dehumanizes the very roommates he shares it with. Worse still, as the flames continue to spread, he has locked his roommates in a room with the fire extinguisher, leaving no way out, silencing the pro-Palestinian voices that could help douse the inferno