Perfect Victims: And the Politics of Appeal

“Zionism is the leading cause of death in occupied Palestine, through both direct, state-sanctioned violence and indirect, consequential violence.”

This blunt statement repositions Zionism from an abstract ideology to a material threat. El-Kurd’s diction—“state-sanctioned,” “consequential”—traces a chain of causality and challenges notions of neutrality. The line’s diagnostic tone mimics medical language, redefining violence as structural and ongoing.

“Dehumanization has situated us—ejected us, even—outside of the human condition, so much so that what is logically understood to be a man’s natural reaction to subjugation is an uncontained and incomprehensible, primal behavior if it comes from us.”

El-Kurd argues that there is an inherent hypocrisy in how Palestinian resistance is pathologized. The contrast between “natural reaction” and “primal behavior” highlights the rhetorical devices used to strip Palestinians of rational agency. Syntax and repetition drive home the alienation and projection at the heart of dehumanization.

“The problem is, if you want to humanize the Palestinian, you have to defang the Palestinian.”

The figurative act of “defanging” captures how expressions of resistance are erased to fit a sanitized narrative, reflecting The Burden of Performative Victimhood. El-Kurd compresses a complex moral tradeoff into a single, visceral image. El-Kurd believes that Palestinians should not have to be “defanged” in order to be taken seriously.

“We are not human automatically by virtue of being human—we are to be humanized by virtue of our proximity to innocence, whiteness, civility, wealth, compromise, collaboration, nonalignment, nonviolence, helplessness, futurelessness.”

This listing device replicates the bureaucratic, often contradictory standards used to grant Palestinians conditional humanity. The repetition of descriptors builds rhetorical weight while exposing the absurdity of such prerequisites. El-Kurd’s tone is both sardonic and analytical, mirroring the structural critique.

“Obituaries of dead Palestinian men deploy certain identifiers (profession, education level, beliefs, and, more recently, sexuality) not to eulogize but to advocate for the deceased, to satisfy the requisite conditions for grieving the deceased.”

El-Kurd critiques the transactional framing of grief in the media. His phrasing—”not to eulogize but to advocate”—juxtaposes the personal with the political, underscoring the burden of justification even in death. The list of qualifiers reveals how mourning is conditional upon perceived Western respectability, reflecting The Burden of Performative Victimhood.

“When I saw her lifeless body planted face-down, next to an unnamed tree, on an unnamed street, I thought the world would stand still.”

The repetition of “unnamed” highlights the erasure of Palestinian geography and individuality in global discourse. El-Kurd’s use of solemn imagery and rhythm evokes mourning, expectation, and betrayal. The sentence builds to a rhetorical climax that never arrives, echoing the world’s inaction.

“Very urgent and necessary, please announce on Twitter and Facebook that Shireen Abu Akleh—is an American citizen. This is a fact, not a rumor. The Israelis killed an American journalist.”

This quote reveals how citizenship becomes a currency for outrage, especially in terms of Media Power and the Politics of Legitimacy. The clipped bureaucratic tone is intentionally dissonant, underscoring the absurd reality in which nationality must precede compassion. El-Kurd subtly critiques how institutional response is activated not by injustice, but by political utility.

“Still, there is no denying that there is a hierarchy of lives, that passports are a currency.”

This metaphor conveys how bureaucratic structures assign value to life. The idea that “passports are a currency” turns legal identity into an economic metaphor, suggesting that humanity is traded on international markets. El-Kurd argues that Palestinians with Western connections are taken more seriously than those without.

“What a burden it is to live in a world that expects us to be a nation of Abd el-Hadis.”

Referencing a historical figure known for hospitality and deference, El-Kurd critiques the demand that Palestinians embody quiet suffering. The phrase “nation of Abd el-Hadis” generalizes this expectation into a collective burden, reflecting The Burden of Performative Victimhood.

“Our reactions to brutality…will be what gets printed in the newspaper…That we were brutalized at all is an ancillary factoid.”

This quote reflects the distortion of narrative focus in media coverage, where Palestinian suffering is sidelined in favor of scrutinizing their response. The ellipses mimic the way facts are fragmented or omitted. El-Kurd’s phrasing critiques the reduction of systemic violence to background noise in the dynamics of Media Power and the Politics of Legitimacy.

“There is no uniform way to grieve the killing of your loved ones. Sometimes it is graceful, other times it is vengeful.”

Here, El-Kurd defends the diversity of emotional responses to loss, challenging the imposed moral script of dignified mourning and The Burden of Performative Victimhood. The sentence structure presents the alternatives as equally valid, countering efforts to frame rage as illegitimate. This assertion reclaims grief as multifaceted and inherently human.

“One does not wish, in short, to be told by an American Jew that his suffering is as great as the American Negro’s suffering. It isn’t and one knows that it isn’t from the veiled tone in which he assures you that it is.”

Quoting James Baldwin, El-Kurd leverages intertextuality to warn against false equivalences. Baldwin’s subtle irony highlights the emotional dishonesty of rhetorical appropriation. The epigraph frames the chapter’s interrogation of language, privilege, and selective empathy.

“Language was more of a minefield than the border that separated the occupied Golan Heights from the rest of Syria, and we, children at the time, were expected to hop around the land mines, hoping we would not accidentally step on an explosive trope that would discredit us.”

This extended metaphor equates linguistic precision with physical survival, dramatizing how Palestinians are policed not just physically but discursively. The repetition of “hoping” and “land mines” adds urgency and stakes to speech. El-Kurd reveals how even childhood is burdened by rhetorical traps.

“A drone is one thing, but a trope—a trope is unacceptable.”

This contrast between physical and symbolic violence critiques the disproportionate emphasis on speech over action. El-Kurd’s sentence structure highlights what he regards as the absurdity of policing metaphors while real warfare proceeds unchecked. The parallelism underscores the power of narrative to overshadow reality.

“If the fool speaks, do not answer.”

This epigraph, attributed to al-Shāfiʿī, introduces the theme of propaganda and the futility of engaging bad-faith discourse, invoking Media Power and the Politics of Legitimacy. The terse structure carries proverbial authority. El-Kurd uses it to signal a refusal to legitimize rhetorical manipulation with rational response.

“What I read cannot be used as a pretext to kill me, even if I filled my library with books written by psychopaths, interchangeably stacking copies of Mein Kampf and Hillary Clinton’s Hard Choices.”

El-Kurd defends intellectual freedom while mocking the logic that equates reading with guilt. The juxtaposition of extreme and mainstream texts satirizes what he regards as the outsized scrutiny over what Palestinians may read. His hyperbole functions as both defense and critique of surveillance culture, although his dismissal of the ideological and historical legacy of Mein Kampf may be offensive to some readers.

“Propaganda is a children’s book. Successful propagandists strive to create talking points that are simultaneously simplistic and incoherent.”

El-Kurd defines propaganda through metaphor and antithesis. By comparing it to a “children’s book,” he emphasizes its oversimplification and seductive clarity. The contradiction between “simplistic and incoherent” points to propaganda’s function as distraction, not information.

“If I die thirsty, may the rain never fail!”

This poetic epigraph expresses both defiance and despair. The conditional phrasing asserts a demand for justice beyond the speaker’s life, while the image of unfailing rain evokes cleansing, mercy, and memory. Its placement at the chapter’s start foreshadows ongoing resistance despite sacrifice, stressing Resistance as Refusal and Reclamation.

“WHO SPEAKS FOR PALESTINIANS? Who retains that right despite decades of demonization, delegitimization, and racial discrimination?”

This rhetorical question critiques the power dynamics of representation. The repetition of “who” emphasizes the exclusion of authentic Palestinian voices and the gatekeeping of narrative authority through Media Power and the Politics of Legitimacy. El-Kurd directly confronts how systemic silencing intersects with racism and media complicity.

“When Palestinians finally arrive in these works, on the screen or on the page, we are represented as victims, not as protagonists or complex characters.”

This quote critiques the reductive portrayal of Palestinians in media and literature. The parallel structure—”on the screen or on the page”—emphasizes the ubiquity of this flattening across platforms. By contrasting “victims” with “protagonists,” El-Kurd calls for a narrative shift that restores agency and nuance to Palestinian identity in place of The Burden of Performative Victimhood.

“‘There is nothing that we can do,’ other friends said when I suggested we campaign for his release.”

This statement reflects a paralyzing sense of futility in the face of systemic injustice, specifically Israel’s administrative detention policies. The defeated tone and passive construction mirror the emotional and political exhaustion of El-Kurd’s circle. The line captures a tragic resignation that challenges the effectiveness of conventional advocacy.

“Gaza has the right to forsake us, to never forgive us, to spit in our faces.”

El-Kurd acknowledges the issue of diaspora complicity. The escalating sequence of actions—"forsake,” “never forgive,” “spit”—communicates accumulated moral debt. This sentence strips away sentimental solidarity, replacing it with hard, self-critical truth.

“To simply imagine Palestine without settlers, to simply imagine a sky without drones—that, in the Zionist imagination, is genocidal.”

This sentence reveals how Palestinian dreams of liberation are recast as existential threats. The repetition of “to simply imagine” underscores the innocence of the desire, while its reception as “genocidal” highlights the colonial inversion of harm and victimhood. El-Kurd weaponizes irony to critique the criminalization of imagination itself.