I’m going to make this post and kick off this reading group to get it moving. If I try to plan it perfectly, it will never get done, so let’s just start and see how it goes, adjusting if needed.

The first book for this reading group will be Perfect Victims, by Mohammed El-Kurd. I’ve pasted the summary below.

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.

This book touches a lot on how Palestinians are constantly expected (especially by Europeans, who invented anti-semitism) to apologize for being Palestinians, and for being victimized by Jewish people.

We’ll start this week by reading and discussing the following article by the same author, which introduces some of his perspective on anti-zionism as a Palestinian.

https://mondoweiss.net/2023/09/jewish-settlers-stole-my-house-its-not-my-fault-theyre-jewish/

This article is just over 2000 words. Let’s discuss in the comments. I’ll keep this post up until next weekend, then we can move on to Perfect Victims. Please let me know in the comments if you think any changes are needed to this plan.

  • JustSo [she/her, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    2·
    21 days ago

    Good point. “Afghan” being on the list was my mistake, I was adding names of groups as they popped into my head and that one slipped through despite being a national demonym and not an ethnic group. “Iranian” is a national demonym too, but I’ve commonly seen it used to refer to ethnic Persians.

    Yeah I was just trying to list nationality labels rather than ethnicities without putting much thought into it, thinking of examples we’re used to using and hearing that don’t raise the “is this some nazi shit?” eyebrow. Didn’t intend to make a point about your use of Afghan, I just got to thinking about it in the context of my country and how there shouldn’t be an ethnic implication when referring to a fully colonial nationality.

    when a comrade is imprecise with language in a clearly non-malicious way and zionists (including gentile zionists) try to exploit that to shift the focus from genocide of Palestinians to feelings of Jewish people, it’s important to reject that reframing wholly. Minor imprecision of language, even when it sounds bad and even when it’s not coming from a Palestinian, is no excuse to pivot away from the actual issue at hand, though zionists love doing so.

    Good point, we’re carrying water for Israel when we police the speech of well meaning comrades. There’s a deeper thing here with taking things in good faith that goes well beyond the scope of this discussion, but I’m glad you made this point because it’s such a waste of time and good will when leftists start spiraling with each other over semantics.

    I feel that it’s often fairly easy to spot actual antisemitism fairly quickly. There’s a common idea I see people state that antisemites are very sneaky, but I think that’s not the case in the overwhelming majority of cases.

    Agreed again. They aren’t clever or sneaky, as a rule, just disingenuous and all that shit Sartre pointed out about reveling in ridiculousness and rhetorical game playing.

    It’s difficult, while being jacketed as an antisemite is so risky in society, to just shrug off those accusations and stick to the points, but perhaps that’s in flux too. Maybe simply refusing to play defense and ignoring those accusations is appropriate more often than we’re conditioned to think.

    • LeninWeave [none/use name, any]@hexbear.netOPMEnglish
      2·
      21 days ago

      Great reply, thanks!

      It’s difficult, while being jacketed as an antisemite is so risky in society, to just shrug off those accusations and stick to the points, but perhaps that’s in flux too. Maybe simply refusing to play defense and ignoring those accusations is appropriate more often than we’re conditioned to think.

      Yes, I agree. I think it’s tough in practice when the stakes can be quite high. It definitely depends on the situation. However, I think many “average” people are being worn out on the constant accusations of antisemitism towards people saying things that are as incredibly controversial as “all children deserve to live”.

      While it’s certainly still a huge risk to be labeled an antisemite in many cases, I think refusing to play defense is the best defense more often than we expect, because (IMO) the zionist strategy of centering (fake) antisemitism partially depends on being able to keep the focus on it as long as possible, which is made harder when the target refuses to entertain the accusation and stays on message.

      Of course, in many cases they have the zionist media empires to turn to where they can focus on whatever they like for as long as they like, but as I said, I think people in general are getting tired of that kind of thing.

      • JustSo [she/her, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        3·
        21 days ago

        Yeah I’ve been half-arsed job hunting and so have had to go on linkedin a lot over the last couple of years and I’ve seen so many professionals posting under their real names and photos promoting the plight of Gazans, it has been quite astonishing and encouraging. So yeah I suspect the old zionist tactics aren’t anywhere near as effective anymore.

        This has been a really stimulating chat, thank you. :)