Mohammed El-Kurd

He grew up in his family’s house in East Jerusalem, where the family had lived for more than 50 years. In 2009 a group of Israeli settlers moved into a building on the property, claiming it as their own.⁠[1]

At 11 he was the subject of My Neighborhood, a documentary about the displacement of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah, in which he said he planned to become a journalist or a lawyer.⁠[2]

Dick Gordon, host of the public radio program The Story, interviewed him and a settler about their relationships to the land they share.⁠[1]

The Lannan Foundation lists him as a recipient of a 2021 Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship.⁠[3]

The Israeli district court in East Jerusalem had earlier ratified orders for six Palestinian families, the El-Kurds among them, to vacate their homes for settlers. In May 2021 Israel’s Supreme Court postponed its ruling and gave the families time to reach an agreement with the settlers based on paying them rent and recognizing them as landlords; the families issued a statement condemning these terms.⁠[4]

Israeli police raided the family home and arrested Muna El-Kurd, and he turned himself in after a summons; their lawyer said they faced allegations of disturbing public security and taking part in riots. Both were released hours later, and he said: “We are not afraid.” He and Muna El-Kurd had launched the #SaveSheikhJarrah social media campaign. Under Israeli law, Jewish groups can claim land that belonged to Jews before Israel’s founding in 1948, even where Palestinian families have lived for decades.⁠[5]

After he spoke with The Nation about creating a Palestine department, the magazine invited him to join as its first dedicated Palestine correspondent. He has argued: “You cannot report on the oppressed without advocating for them.”⁠[2]

He and Muna El-Kurd were named to TIMETIMETIME is an American newsmagazine and media brand founded by Henry Luce and Briton Hadden, which published its first issue on March 3, 1923; it is headquartered in New York and known for its Person of the Year selection and the TIME100 list. Since 2018 it has been personally owned by Marc and Lynne Benioff; its current Chief Executive Officer is Jessica Sibley, and its Editor-in-Chief is Sam Jacobs.Open the full entry’s annual list of the 100 most influential people. The tribute by TIME reporter Sanya Mansoor said the siblings “challenged existing narratives about Palestinian resistance through viral posts and interviews.”⁠[6]

He then said on Twitter that although the listing was a positive development, symbolism was not enough to truly support the Palestinian cause.⁠[7]

His debut poetry collection, Rifqa, was published by Haymarket Books in October 2021 and later released in Italian.⁠[8]

When the American University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine invited him to an event, opponents launched a petition accusing him of antisemitism in Rifqa and in past social media statements, including use of the blood libel trope and dismissal of Jewish indigeneity to Israel; a student supporting the event said that calling it antisemitic was Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian. The event moved to an off-campus church, and he said the change was not caused by the backlash.⁠[9]

He was shortlisted for the 2022 Forward Prizes for Poetry.⁠[10]

The shortlisted work was Rifqa, in the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection.⁠[3]

Speaking on “On ‘Perfect Victims’ and the Politics of Appeal,” he said media tend to portray Palestinians killed by Israeli forces either as terrorists or as victims and declared that he refused the “politics of appeal.” Before the lecture some on campus had accused him of making antisemitic statements; Abigail Rabieh of the Center for Jewish Life student board criticized him for equating Israel with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and for misleading the audience.⁠[11]

In episode 391 he discussed Palestine, antisemitism, the West Bank, Hamas, the two-state solution, Jerusalem, the role of the United States, Ghassan Kanafani, and poetry and language.⁠[12]

Speaking at a pro-Palestinian rally in London, he said “we must normalise massacres as the status quo.” The text of the speech he later released read “not normalise massacres as the status quo,” and he said he had misspoken. The Metropolitan Police said officers were aware of the remarks and his subsequent statements, were assessing the matter and would seek to speak to him.⁠[13]

Against Erasure: A Photographic Memory of Palestine Before the Nakba, a photo book he co-edited with Sandra Barrilaro and Teresa Aranguren, was published by Haymarket Books and later listed by the Palestine Book Awards as a 2024 winner.⁠[14]

His nonfiction debut, Perfect Victims and the Politics of Appeal, was published by Haymarket Books.⁠[15]

In a review, the poet Jackie Wang summarized its argument that the strategy of seeking sympathy through victimhood grants moral authority to those in power and requires Palestinians to maintain a posture of powerlessness.⁠[16]

In a review, Manal Al-Barakati called the book a manifesto against the “sanitized narratives of victimhood” that dominate Western discourse on Palestine.⁠[17]

He is The Nation’s Palestine correspondent and an editor-at-large at Mondoweiss, and was listed as a speaker at SXSW London 2026.⁠[15]

He holds an MFA in creative writing from Brooklyn College (CUNY) and a BFA in writing from the Savannah College of Art & Design in Atlanta.⁠[14]

Personal website: Public link: https://mohammedelkurd.com (opens in a new window)⁠[12]

X: Public account: https://x.com/m7mdkurd (opens in a new window)⁠[12]

The Nation: Official website: https://www.thenation.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[15]

Mondoweiss: Official website: https://mondoweiss.net/ (opens in a new window)⁠[15]