I was at a party and a friend asked, “how's the work/genocide balance?” I laughed and he laughed but God knows we're dying inside. I go through each day with this low level of impenetrable sadness behind my eyes. There's just this sadness in every moment, under the table at every meal, in the shadows of my children, ruining every happiness I feel. It's something I forget about but always remember. I can avoid it but, like a void, it's still there. Genocide is the death of a people, and I am a people. I'm also dying inside.

The martyr philosopher Basil Al-Araj said, “every Palestinian (in the broad sense, meaning anyone who sees Palestine as a part of their struggle, regardless of their secondary identities), every Palestinian is on the front lines of the battle for Palestine, so be careful not to fail in your duty.” I feel this, I feel Palestine as part of my aragalaya, and I feel it my duty to at least write about the genocide I'm living through.

I have no work/genocide balance because my work is genocide. I have seen terrible and incredible things and most days I don't write as much as recite. Since the ghetto uprising, I have seen the ghetto liquidation. At the same time I have seen partisans lighting up tanks in the street like Roman candles. I have seen dying men pray with their dying breaths. I have seen heroes throw sticks at drones rather than give up. I have seen Jesus's words, when He said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Next to this—next to literally all there is—I have nothing to offer. All my words are worth less than dust on a Palestinian child's sandal. God said there are times that test men's souls. It's an open book test, but I'm still failing. Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” Come at me bro, He said. Mohammed recited, “Beware of a trial that will not only affect the wrongdoers among you. And know that Allah is severe in punishment.” We have been told, and told again. These are two prophets from the same God. There are many paths to this information, I've seen the Buddha's path and turned around to check my phone instead. As Al Pacino said, “I always knew what the right path was. Without exception, I knew, but I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard.” And so it is. They say a coward dies many times before his death. Certainly feels like it.

The only thing that gives me some pride is that I have sacrificed something. I gave up money, Medium cut my earnings from $1,200 to $200 and algorithmically disappeared me from view. The FBI came looking for me in America (where I don't live and am not a citizen) and asked if I pose “any risk of acting in support of a terrorist organization beyond first amendment protected speech.” I cry because I don't. I know God is watching for action, the Feds don't have to rub it in. I'm happy because these meagre sacrifices are at least sacrifices, and I know God likes that sort of thing. So I offer these words and the costs they've incurred next to the dust on better people's sandals.

That's the genocide inside. The pain of living through the mass murder of a people, and being a people too. The pain of being held in extermination, concentration, and torture camps, and of being made to watch others suffer in front of you. The only proper response to genocide is resistance, a people's resistance to the extermination of a people. And, for me, that's the only thing that gets me through the day. Seeing Hamas fighters blow up Merkava Tanks, and cheering them on. Seeing Hezbollah fighters lose their top ranks, and fight even harder and smarter than before. And supporting the Resistance, whatever that costs. I guess that's the way to deal with the genocide inside. You have to do something, outside, about it. I invite you to Read the Resistance directly, for a start.