Mohammed el-Kurd is a Palestinian poet, author, and journalist from Sheikh Jarrah in occupied East Jerusalem. At 11 years old, his family home was taken over by armed Israeli settlers—and since emigrating to the U.S. to attend college, he has spent significant time explaining to Westerners what life is like under occupation. El-Kurd’s new book, Perfect Victims and the Politics of Appeal, takes aim at a deeply ingrained feature of Western discourse: the expectation that Palestinians must prove themselves innocent, sympathetic, and sufficiently “human” before their oppression can be condemned.

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