Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:
Palestinian writer and poet Mohammed el-Kurd is from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem. He became known around the world when he resisted the theft of his family home by Israeli settlers.
Now, as he and his community continue to resist, he is constantly asked in Western media: But what about their feelings? Where will the settlers go?
His response created a meltdown for corporate media elites: “I truly don’t give a f***”
In a new satirical parody of the disingenuous Western media, Mohammed expands his answer: “Why should I care about what happens to the settlements? What happens to the people who have been bombed to smithereens? What happens to our relatives who are in prisons rotting away without charge or trial? But what I'm asked to care about is the hypothetical future of the settlers who drink their coffee from my balcony.”
So we chat with Mohammed on Useful Idiots to find out why he’s using satire to make fun of the corporate media that treats Palestinians so disingenuously.
“Ever since this genocidal onslaught on Gaza started,” he says. “It's become more and more circus-like. Being a Palestinian in the media sphere almost feels gimmicky, like it's being done for entertainment values. We are told to take these ridiculous accusations seriously, to respond to them in good faith. In reality, when you're responding to them in good faith, you're giving them power over you.”
Mohammed’s parody, which he made with Jewish Voice for Peace activist Morgan Bassichis, is instead titled In Bad Faith. “When you're satirizing them, when you're dismissing them, you are in fact flipping the script. It teaches the audience at home something. It inspires them and incentivizes them to be more flippant, to be more irreverent, to refuse these kinds of investigations and interrogations.”
What is serious: Mohammed goes in-depth on what it was like to have people violently raid his community and steal their homes.
“They would look at us like they were at an auction for zoo animals. And that's how it felt. We grew up with settlers doing all kinds of sexual harassment, verbal abuses, and they're always protected by police. We would have busloads come into our front yard and sing their religious songs and scream their expletives at us, spit at us. If I didn't live that life, I would not believe it.”
Subscribe for the full interview with Mohammed el-Kurd where we ask him if there’s any difference between Trump and the Democrats, discuss the New York Times’ complicity with their rampant anti-Palestinian propaganda, and find out: will Kamala Harris be any different?
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Biden forgets he’s at war around the world
Thanks for supporting independent media. Subscribe for the full episode here:
