Perfect Victims

PALESTINE BOOK AWARD WINNER
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLER
USA TODAY BESTSELLER
"Mohammed El-Kurd has written a new Discourse on Colonialism for the twenty-first century."
-Robin D. G. Kelley
Perfect Victims is an urgent affirmation of the Palestinian condition of resistance and refusal-an ode to the steadfastness of a nation.
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.

Mohammed El-Kurd is a writer, poet, journalist, and organizer from Jerusalem, occupied Palestine. He is the Nation's first-ever Palestine Correspondent and editor-at-large at Mondoweiss, the recipient of numerous honors and awards, and the author of the highly-acclaimed poetry collection Rifqa, which has been translated into several languages.

author's note(s)
one: the sniper's hands are clean of blood
on dehumanization
two: the politics of defanging
on "humanization"
three: shireen's passport
on the invention of the civilian
four: a life in cross-examination
on forbidden sentiments
five: tropes and drones
on discursive land mines
six: mein kampf in the playroom
on propaganda
seven: miraculous epiphanies
on testimony
eight: are we indeed all palestinians?
on identity
nine: "do you want to throw israelis into the sea?"
on irreverence
epilogue