Confronting the Heat

Anthology for the Colonized

PREFACE - What follows is the video and transcript of the CreativeMornings talk I gave on April 17 for their ember series. The handout distributed during the talk is available at the end of this post with clickable links. Alhamdulillah, the experience deeply impacted me, as I achieved my goal of connecting with a general American audience (rather than preaching to a choir of fellow activists) about the atrocities around the world that our taxes fund against our will; many listeners came up to me after the talk crying too hard to speak, and their compassion was really touching to witness, teaching me that silence in the face of injustice is sometimes not a sign of indifference, but ignorance, which is easier to remedy. You can read the fiery speech that I originally wrote for this occasion in my previous post.

---

The People of Palestine Kidnapped by Israeli Forces in the Occupied Gaza Strip
(Yossi Zeliger for Reuters, December 2023)

---

I have a problem. I’ve been sitting in a fire for a few years now, and I want desperately to tell you about it, to invite you into my world, but let’s just say that there’s a good chance you’ve been kept far enough away from the blazing inferno that I’m genuinely not sure how to approach you without coming in too hot. Essentially, what I’ve been asking myself is: how do I fire you up without burning you? And that’s the question we’ll be trying to answer together this morning. Full disclosure, the first five versions of this speech were too angry to be usable. And I’ve been wisely advised that it might be overwhelming for the audience to just listen to me list the latest war crimes our taxes have funded around the world, even though it’s really tempting for me to use this platform as a chance to undo the damage done by the mainstream media. I sincerely don’t want today to be about me, but if showing you the world through my eyes can blunt the shock or make the heavy feel accessible, then I’m very grateful for this opportunity to share with you a condensed anthology of my creative writing from over the course of the genocide.

At times, my words might feel like a lot, but I promise you, today I’m trying to be an ember instead of a fire. An ember is a coal that still smolders after the fire has flickered out. The fire I’ve been cooking in contains the warmth and light of truth, a message that needs to spread, and I can’t be casual about it, because it is a matter of life or death. But what good is it if the fire burns too intensely for anyone to draw near? We’ll just burn ourselves out. An ember, on the other hand, carries the flame, it’s still true to the heat, but we can invite people to actually hold it in their hands and confront it directly. At least, that’s my hope, God willing.

And if you do happen to be the type of person who is motivated by anger, if you’re like, “hit me with the fire,” or if you feel curious after hearing me share my heart with you this morning and you’d like to see one of the speeches I originally wrote for this event that would have been too much for nine am with coffee and donuts, it’s up on my liberation blog, which is linked on the handouts. More importantly, the handouts contain resources to learn more and ways to act now. And before I jump into my reading: this is crazy, I swear we didn’t plan this, but today of all days, April 17, is actually the international day of solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners. This day is a reminder that over ten thousand Palestinian hostages and counting are still illegally held in Israeli torture camps, including journalists, doctors, and children. In fact, a few weeks ago, Israel actually passed a death penalty law that only applies to Palestinians and not to the Jewish population (please raise your hands if you already knew about this new apartheid law, and no shame if you didn’t, I just want to see how much is reaching people). With the mainstream media in its pocket, Israel doesn’t have to conceal the racist policies on which it was founded, but we don’t have to let them get away with it, and I can’t think of a better way to spend this day of solidarity than to be here with you to honor the Palestinians who have been held for decades in the dungeons of their occupiers. Thank you so much, I don’t take for granted the chance to borrow your ears this morning, and I recognize the care you show by being here; I’m now going to share with you a sample of my poems and essays from roughly the past year of the genocide, and I’ll read them in the order I wrote them.

---

Poem from February 2025: Phosphorus Palms

if we are to die

then put us to death

don’t play with your prey

until the last breath

if we are to fight

then fight us like men

don’t shoot at our kids

and silence our pen

if you want our land

then stop dropping bombs

like you’d take craters

with phosphorus palms

if you want to lie

on why you must kill

then buy your own tale

or no one else will

and what if the way

you treated the poor

reaches your own kind

then what was it for?

and what if one day

you stir in your bed

and find you can’t get

us out of your head?

---

Essay from March 2025: Like Our Voices Could Free You

Anything I could say falls short and the last thing you need is our tears, yet I keep rewriting this line, like our voices could free you, if only our eloquence were profound enough to reach hearts or change minds or inform those who seriously still don’t know so the genocide might end one minute sooner. Can you feel the desperation in my words? If it’s not reaching, how do I make it reach? And if I’m too upfront or intense, will I turn people off? Will the algorithm turn me off? What’s the might of the pen without readers?

Words are all I have to offer. And for that, I’m so sorry. And my words are so burdened. They could never be heavy enough to match the weight of the moment, to do justice to the task they are called for, yet they are too heavy to be heard, a frequency tuned out by the unbothered masses. I resent them for diluting us. My supportive bosses ask how I’m doing and I dare to say good. I resent myself. I am a people pleaser who has been screaming at strangers on the street, their racism polite and my righteousness unhinged. I have gotten to know myself and I have learned that in a genocide, my rage far exceeds my sorrow.

And when they tell me to catch flies with honey, I tell them you’re talking to a bee. But all I see these days is my stinger, because all I hear these days are drones.

I’m so sorry. They’re on my screen and I’m not there. I’m so grateful. Yet what would I want of this world, if you’re not enjoying it with me? I feel useless. I feel like the world is useless, and shameful, and fake, like my disgust could encompass the atmosphere. I’m furious at everyone, all the time. And I don’t want to hurt anyone. I’m so sorry.

Your bewilderment on our screens is so calm, Palestine. We deserve far harsher than your patient rebukes. Humanity has failed you. May God forgive us, except the silent, and guide us beyond the need to keep apologizing to the most betrayed people of all time, who have taught us everything and humbled and inspired us, and in return we keep watching their slaughter, I’m so sorry. May God bless everyone who has more than words to work with, and I’ll keep using my words, because if language alone can be used to manufacture consent for genocide, then speech can even more naturally expose the truth. Maybe we can channel the trauma before it drowns us and maybe if our message strikes the right chord, it can move something in someone who can do something more than say sorry.

---

Poem from August 2025 (About Iraq): Dust and Gasoline

you smell of dust and gasoline

just like that, I’m young, my heart stops

I’m playing palm tree shadow tag

I’m picking fruits from rooftops

we didn’t leave you burning, love

we left you right before

we sought cover from the sandstorm

but could not seek much more

if what we know now

were known back then

would we still have left?

drawn a deep enough breath?

to make the smells last

mixing future with past

what we know now

that we didn’t back then

about homeland is that

we never saw you again

---

Poem from November 2025 (About Sudan): Stolen Dessert

they act like your bodies

and souls are cheap

they sow as though

they will never reap

what should I do

if I can’t breathe?

I see your arms twisted

up in that tree

I see my own people

laugh as you bleed

the devil was so sure

that fire

is better than clay

so there

is where he

will end up one Day

they think their skin

is better than yours

he thought that too

and he was so sure

melanin and skeletons

are vessels for the colonized

but the vassal as the slave master

is in for a surprise

he too is skin and bones

and a soul to be apprized

oh people of Heaven

and people of Hell

your time is short

on this Earth where you dwell

oh people of hunger

when your turn comes to eat

the feast will not end

with the One you will meet

oh people of pockets

when your time comes to burn

all you will be told

is to taste what you earned

oh city of gold

and stolen dessert

your chocolate will melt

into mud and dirt

when your stocks plummet

you will feel the pain

but nothing like the Day

you will choke by your chains

---

Essay from December 2025: Get on Their Level

There are days when I sit instead of standing, like I’m waiting for the world to liberate itself.

I read your news like that’s enough.

The war crimes repeat themselves. So do my words. They start to fade out like your lives. Sometimes I save them up and squirrel them away for fear I won’t have them when I need them, should someone happen to be listening, but I don’t know who. Most days it’s God alone.

I pray for you like that’s enough.

I feel like I’ve done it all, tried everything, yet when I weigh my efforts, it’s almost like they don’t even register on the scale. But I don’t know how to measure these things. I feel like I’ve done little more than bear witness. You’ve changed my life, but I haven’t changed yours.

I learn from you like that’s enough.

It was too cold to protest again this week. I got to warm myself while your children froze to death. I think of new ideas for signs. I forget them before I find the paint.

I speak out for you like that’s enough.

It’s our words versus their lies, our words versus their money, our words versus their drones. Our most righteous words feel obscene. Will words feed you or free you or reclaim your stolen land? Do our strongly worded letters to war criminals feel like an insult to you at this point? The international community turned out to be a euphemism for the colonizer, and they have words too, they offer a thousand words to reframe the ugliest picture. Self-defense is called terrorism, and terrorism is called self-defense. All the soldiers of all the lands turned out to be decoration, flexing their muscles for the performance and only getting to use their strength when the state needs protection from the wrath of its own people.

I cry for you like that’s enough.

My rage doesn’t settle. If it does, it turns to sorrow. I’ll carry it with me like a burden in my heart all the way to Judgment Day, because God alone can settle a score this vast. I shudder to think of how the world could ever clear the debt we owe to Palestine. My bed is so soft. I think of your flooded tents. I think of the dogs they train to rape you.

That’s enough.

It feels wrong to keep reading about the ways Israelis torture you, and it feels wrong to stop reading. I think of Al Fashir and Kordofan and I can’t breathe. My mind can’t believe the numbers, each one a soul, cherished and haunting to its beloved ones. Sudan, how could we ever meet your eyes? I’ve had an eye on Venezuela too, because lately it looks like Iraq if you squint, and their boats “carry fentanyl” in the same way my homeland “harbored weapons of mass destruction.” Perpetrators convict their victims in the ultimate double-tap strike. A man in Kashmir burned himself alive the other day when the occupiers took his family away, and we’ve got ICE in our backyards leaving the same trail of misery. It’s tough to reconcile the chess game of global power struggles with their human impact. I read and write about the world, but I’m no political analyst. I just care about people.

What if that’s not enough?

Then again, who are we to despair when you do not despair, to the grave and far beyond? You don’t fight to taste freedom yourself, but to give your children a chance to taste it, and they’ll fight for the same reason if they have to. And when we fight for you from far away with our meager words, some will say we’re not doing anything, and others will say it’s about the ripple effect. But if I do affect someone, and the ripple of my impact doesn’t go beyond that one person, was that individual soul not valuable in its own right? What if our efforts are flawed yet continual, what if a tree didn’t grow yet, but we keep planting seeds instead of sitting on our hands?

What if trying is enough?

Not because we might make a difference given enough people buying into our mission. Not because we might make a difference given enough time. We could keep seeing zero “results” till the day we return to our Lord. Maybe us standing out in the streets or on the screens for the cause is the result. Maybe trying is the point. How could our efforts be fruitless if the efforts are the fruits, the willingness to leave our homes and shatter our silence and attempt to reform something profoundly broken? Isn’t that a difference? Our souls are just as needy as those in Palestine, and just as capable of glorious resistance. Maybe we were never standing out there to save Palestine. We’re just trying to get on their level.

And maybe that’s enough.

---

Poem from March 2026: Antibody

we’re back here again

I remember this part

with smoke in my eyes

and sand in my heart

I would cough you from my lungs

but I can feel you in my nerves

if I cut through skin to dig you out

would we both get what we deserve?

I would spit you from my seas

but I can see you in my skies

and I would crush you on the ground

but I keep bruising my thighs

get off of me

get off of me

get off of me

at last I see

you kill thousands of my children

then complain about the price of gas

and they applaud your valor

as entire nations pass

you cut me up and graft yourself

yet you say I let you in

you poison me and tell the world I’m sick

and you call yourself my medicine

get out of here

get out of here

get out of here

at last it’s clear

with your missiles in my hair

and your bases on my head

I can tell this is cancer

and I know it has spread

one of us has numbered days

on this body that used to be mine

I’m bleeding, but awake at last

my antibody Palestine

---

And that brings us to today. We just journeyed across the Atlantic as I’ve shared with you how I’ve personally been processing the ongoing genocide, and as we come back into this room together, I want to say I’ve passed you the torch, but I know it’s more like I’ve put these embers right into your palms. I know they’re heavy; I warned you they’re hot. But I’m trusting you with them because I believe in your ability to carry them, a burden shared and a bond forged.

I’ve had a really hard time talking to the general public for the past few years. I’ve given plenty of speeches at rallies, but I lost my diplomacy for a while there, a diplomacy I have spent my life cultivating by the way, through every career choice I have made since growing up here as an Iraqi Muslim during the so-called “War on Terror.” Yet over the past few years, between the racist death threats we’d get on the streets and the snubs from city councilors and the ambushes from Zionists and the lies about us in the media and the cops in riot gear and the judges in courtrooms who were bafflingly indifferent as to why we were protesting on college campuses and in front of weapon factories in the first place, sometimes it felt like we weren’t part of society anymore. I want you to know what it means for me to be standing here with you now.

And I want you to feel like you can talk to me about it, like the lives we’ve been losing are your family too. Do you know how much hope the people of Palestine gain from watching American activism? Even if you feel really out of your depth and totally new to this topic, or if you used to think differently, no matter who you are and what you’ve been through, I’m inviting you today to hold this ember with me. So if you have any questions, I want to hear them.

---

LEARN MORE ABOUT PALESTINE AND JOIN THE FIGHT AGAINST IMPERIALISM

Palestinian and Muslim Voices

• Bisan Owda of “It’s Bisan from Gaza and I’m Still Alive” - youtube.com/@ajplus

• We Are Not Numbers - wearenotnumbers.org

• The Institute for Middle East Understanding - imeu.org

(Click “Resources” and then “The Nakba” to read about the ethnic cleansing catastrophe in 1947 that led to the violent creation of the apartheid settler colony that now occupies Palestine.)

• With Struggle Comes Liberation: y9ssra.substack.com

(You can access this handout and today’s anthology on my liberation blog through the post titled “Confronting the Heat,” and you can read the fiery speech that I originally wrote for this event through the post titled “Home to Roost: The Imperial Boomerang from Israel to ICE.”)

Jewish and Western Voices

• B’Tselem - btselem.org

(This Israeli human rights organization releases reports like “Our Genocide” and “Welcome to Hell” to document Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the experiences of over ten thousand Palestinian hostages who are still held without charge in Israeli torture camps.)

• The New York War Crimes - newyorkwarcrimes.com

(Learn about how the Zionist-owned “New York Times” has provided cover for US involvement in atrocities and manufactured consent for Israel’s genocide in Palestine, misleading the masses through their intentionally distorted and consistently racist reporting.)

• Jewish Voice for Peace - jewishvoiceforpeace.org

• Political Scientist Norman Finkelstein - normanfinkelstein.com/videos

Some News Sources Not Controlled by Billionaire War Criminals

• Middle East Eye - middleeasteye.net

• Mondoweiss - mondoweiss.net

• Democracy Now! - democracynow.org

• Drop Site News - dropsitenews.com

• Double Down News - doubledown.news

BOYCOTT - bdsmovement.net and disoccupied.com

DONATE - pcrf.net and hhrd.org

ABSTAIN - trackaipac.com

(Use this online tool to find out whether your representatives support genocide.)

The resources on this handout are only a small sample of what’s out there. Think of it as an invitation to further educate yourself and your loved ones about the plight of Palestine and our direct involvement in it as American taxpayers, from the history of the Nakba starting in 1947 to Israel’s daily violations of international law in Gaza and the West Bank since the “ceasefire” of October 2025, as the genocide continues to unfold even as Israel and the US kill thousands and displace millions in Iran and Lebanon in 2026. When talking about justice and human rights, please don’t forget Palestine. It has everything to do with us, every struggle is connected, and we have a role to play as people living in relative privilege to never stop fighting until all of the colonized peoples around the world are free of their occupiers!