Perfect Victims: And the Politics of Appeal

In the “Author’s Note(s),” Mohammed El-Kurd outlines the intentions, limitations, and ideological framing of his work. Acknowledging the incompleteness of the book, El-Kurd stresses that writing in the midst of what he describes as “genocide” cannot fully capture the scale or immediacy of Palestinian suffering. He notes the inadequacy of language in the face of bombs and mass death, but expresses a desire to contribute coherently to an already expansive conversation around Palestine and liberation.

El-Kurd critiques the commodification of “Palestine” as social currency in some progressive spaces, where it can be selectively deployed for clout without meaningful engagement. He emphasizes that while Palestinian presence in global discourse has grown, it often remains confined to frameworks that sanitize, dilute, or neutralize the urgency of the issue. Rather than focus solely on rights-based or legalist discourses, El-Kurd positions his work as an intervention that highlights lived experience, local epistemology, and cultural fragmentation. He seeks not just to bridge the gap between Palestine and the rest of the world, but also to confront the tension between Palestinians in the homeland and those in the diaspora.

He clarifies that Perfect Victims is not a manifesto, academic monograph, or comprehensive critique, but rather an interrogation—of language, ideology,