Palestinian Activists Usher In A New Era Of Struggle

By Omar Zahzah, In These Times

In 2021, Mohammed El-Kurd, a Palestinian writer from Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, published a poetry collection, Rifqa. The poem, ​“Fifteen-Year Old Girl Killed For Attempting to Kill a Soldier (With a Nail File), Or Context,” captures a theme that animates newer generations of the movement for Palestine’s liberation. It is an angry rejection of the apologia and destructiveness of the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (Oslo Accords), which were officially signed into law in 1995 and created the Palestinian Authority (but not a Palestinian state).

“Running to catastrophe with context, / commissioning compassion, turning / heroes into humans,” El-Kurd writes, ​“This is a refuted revolution.” The poem continues, in a modified refrain, ​“Solidarity often is a refuted revolution.”

The poem’s accomplishment lies in its ability to relay the inherent injustice that the West inflicts on Palestinians, telling us to make our anti-colonial struggle more ​“palatable” by presenting what Dalya Al Masri terms ​“the perfect Palestinian victim: innocent but not defiant.” She writes, ​“This is the same dialogue that created the Oslo Accords and the subcontractor of Israeli occupation, the Palestinian Authority. It also reinforces the both-sides narrative popular in the West that helps legitimize violence against Palestinians.”