Latest news with #El-Kurd
Memri
14-03-2025
- Politics
- Memri
U.S.-Based Palestinian Writer And Activist Mohammed El-Kurd: October 7, Plane Hijackings, And Suicide Bombings Taught Us That Only Violence Gets The World's Attention; Synagogues Display Israeli Flags While Mosques With ISIS Flags Are Seen As Problematic
American activist and TV personality Marc Lamont Hill had a conversation with U.S.-based Palestinian writer and activist Mohammed el-Kurd at a Philadelphia bookshop café on March 10, 2025. El-Kurd said that the events of October 7 taught Palestinians the same lesson as plane hijackings and suicide bombings: that only through acts of violence will they garner world attention. He added, "I think Palestinian resistance factions are acting accordingly." El-Kurd explained that in the past, he was careful to distinguish between Israelis or Zionists and Jews. However, he pointed out that Israelis themselves fight under "what they call a Jewish flag" and claim Israel as the only Jewish state, while critics of Israel are expected to make that distinction. Speaking about the arrest of Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil, el-Kurd noted that many Jews and non-Jews claimed such acts would not make Jews safer. He argued that this discourse suggests that antisemitism is more evil and dangerous than all other forms of racism. El-Kurd compared the Confederate flag, the ISIS flag, and the Israeli flag, saying that people would find it "a bit problematic" to have the former two flags in a church or mosque, yet many synagogues display Israeli flags. Marc Lamont Hill: "Talk to me a little bit about the post October [seventh] logics that we should be thinking about and taking up as we talk about this possibility of resistance, liberation, and self-determination for the Palestinian people." [...] Mohammed el-Kurd: "What October 7 has taught us is what plane hijackings have taught us, what suicide bombings have taught us, and what all of these other things have taught us, is that the world is telling us, time and time again, that the only times we are going to put you on the screen, or we are going to listen to you or talk to you is going to be when you commit acts of violence. That's the kind of message the world is sending us, and I think Palestinian resistance factions are acting accordingly. [...] "I would always make disclaimers to these diplomats, as a child, that I don't hate Jews, I understand antisemitism, that we make a distinction between Israelis... Zionists and Jews, bla bla bla. But that burden – again, it's not my responsibility, I should not be in cross-examination, I should not be in the hot seat. [...] "The [Israeli soldiers] march under what they call a Jewish flag, they fight under the banner of what they call a Jewish army, they do everything in the name of Judaism, and they gloat about it. They say they're the only Jewish state in the world, they are the only Jewish army in the world, and yet we are asked to make the distinction. [...] "So today, in the discourse about the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil the Columbia student, there have been so many well-meaning Jewish people and also non-Jewish people, who have been saying that this kind of behavior, this crackdown, does not keep Jews safer. [...] "[All of this] is telling us that there is nothing more evil, there is nothing more dangerous, or there is nothing more profane than antisemitism. It creates a hierarchy, in which certain racisms are worse than others. [...] "I think it would be a bit problematic if churches had Confederate flags in them. I think it would be a bit problematic if mosques had ISIS flags in them, and yet you go into any random synagogue and there is an Israeli flag. That's f***ed up!"
Memri
13-03-2025
- Politics
- Memri
U.S.-Based Palestinian Writer and Activist Mohammed el-Kurd: October 7, Plane Hijackings, and Suicide Bombings Taught Us That Only Violence Garners World Attention; Synagogues Display Israeli Flags Wh
American activist and TV personality Marc Lamont Hill had a conversation with U.S.-based Palestinian writer and activist Mohammed el-Kurd at a Philadelphia bookshop café on March 10, 2025. El-Kurd said that the events of October 7 taught Palestinians the same lesson as plane hijackings and suicide bombings: that only through acts of violence will they garner world attention. He added, 'I think Palestinian resistance factions are acting accordingly.' El-Kurd explained that in the past, he was careful to distinguish between Israelis or Zionists and Jews. However, he pointed out that Israelis themselves fight under 'what they call a Jewish flag' and claim Israel as the only Jewish state, while critics of Israel are expected to make that distinction. Speaking about the arrest of Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil, el-Kurd noted that many Jews and non-Jews claimed such acts would not make Jews safer. He argued that this discourse suggests that antisemitism is more evil and dangerous than all other forms of racism. El-Kurd compared the Confederate flag, the ISIS flag, and the Israeli flag, saying that people would find it 'a bit problematic' to have the former two flags in a church or mosque, yet many synagogues display Israeli flags.
Arab News
27-02-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Book Review: ‘Perfect Victims' by Mohammed El-Kurd
Mohammed El-Kurd's 'Perfect Victims: and the Politics of Appeal,' published in January 2025, is a scorching manifesto against the sanitized narratives of victimhood that dominate Western discourse on Palestine. With poetic precision and unyielding clarity, El-Kurd dismantles the 'politics of appeal' — the insidious expectation that Palestinians, and other oppressed communities, must contort their suffering into palatable shapes to earn global sympathy. This is not a book that asks for understanding, it demands a reckoning. Drawing from his lived experience in the occupied Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, El-Kurd exposes the suffocating standards imposed on Palestinian bodies and stories. He unravels how the world's empathy hinges on the display of 'perfect' victimhood: passive, non-threatening, and quiet in its anguish. He writes against this expectation, refusing to strip the Palestinian struggle of its dignity and defiance. Instead, El-Kurd reclaims his community's narrative as one of survival and resilience, asserting, 'We are not just the sum of our wounds.' 'Perfect Victims' is more than a critique, it is an unmasking. El-Kurd meticulously dissects how language, media, and international institutions become tools of erasure. He shines a harsh light on the global complicity that demands victims remain meek to be seen as worthy of justice. Through case studies, historical context, and deeply personal reflections, he exposes how even well-meaning solidarity can morph into another form of control, reducing the oppressed to mere symbols stripped of agency. El-Kurd's prose is vivid and relentless. His words do not simply inform — they pierce. He does not appeal to the reader's charity but instead confronts them with the uncomfortable truth: that selective empathy is itself a form of violence. His analysis extends beyond Palestine, offering a blueprint for understanding how narratives of victimhood are weaponized against marginalized communities worldwide. Yet, what makes 'Perfect Victims' truly extraordinary is El-Kurd's unwavering refusal to accept the confines of victimhood. His narrative is a rebellion against the expectation of silence. He writes: 'We are not here to perform our pain for your absolution. We are here to live, to love, to resist.' These words resonate as a battle cry — simultaneously a rejection of imposed passivity and an affirmation of life beyond occupation. This is a book that refuses to be quiet. It is a work of profound defiance, carving out space for Palestinian voices to be heard, not as whispers, but as thunder. 'Perfect Victims: and the Politics of Appeal' is a literary and political act of reclamation — a blazing testament to the enduring dignity of a people who refuse to let their story be written by anyone but themselves.
