EL-KURD, Mohammed
Perfect Victims – and the Politics of Appeal

“Here’s a river of fire. Dive in, if you dare. It will clear the fog.”
—Arundhati Ro

Palestine is a microcosm of the world: on fire, stubborn, fragmented, dignified. While a settler colonial state continues to inflict devastating violence, fundamental truths are deliberately obscured—the perpetrators are coddled while the victims are blamed and placed on trial.

Why must Palestinians prove their humanity? And what are the implications of such an infuriatingly impossible task? With fearless prose and lyrical precision, Mohammed El-Kurd refuses a life spent in cross-examination. Rather than asking the oppressed to perform a perfect victimhood, El-Kurd asks friends and foes alike to look Palestinians in the eye, forgoing both deference and condemnation.

How we see Palestine reveals how we see each other; how we see everything else. Masterfully combining candid testimony, history, and reportage, Perfect Victims presents a powerfully simple demand: dignity for the Palestinian.

An urgent affirmation of the Palestinian condition of resistance and refusal―an ode to the steadfastness of a nation. [publishers’ note]

“Great poets are truth-tellers, and the truth hurts.”
—Robin D. G. Kelley

Published by Haymarket Books, 2025
Poetry / Essays