For me, what is going on in Gaza, and around it in other countries, is an actual war.

A war not only to save the lives of whoever we can in Gaza, which is our sacred duty to our fellow human beings.

A war not of bullets and bombs that I don’t have, don’t want to ever have and hate with all my being, but a war of ideas, a cultural war, an existential battle for my humanity, and humanity’s humanity.

A war against those who try to force us to not care, and not show it if we do.

For me this is war not only because my name, my heritage, the history of my family and my people, everything that I ever came to view as beautiful and sweet in my childhood, my humanity, my Judaism, all have been hijacked and weaponized for an ideology and message of brutality, violence, and hatred I could never accept in a billion trillion years.

For me as a living, thinking, writing human, this is a war of huge, cataclysmic consequence: if I lose – if we lose – then all is lost. Then no child, no mother, no father, no brother, no sister, will ever be safe. Ever. I will not betray all those people by not showing up for this war of ideas, even though they will never know me. I love them and I care for them just the same (I don’t need any god for this. This is me).

For me this is war because I could not live with myself in a world where this is legitimate, lawful, acceptable. Could you? Could you live with yourself in a nice comfortable house when a few streets away, or thousands of miles away, children are being killed in their hundreds every day? Could you? Then what are you?

For me, and for you, too, whether you get it or not, and definitely regardless of your being Palestinian or not, this is an actual, real, existential struggle.

I would advise anyone reading this: don’t get ever distracted or confused. Don’t ask “What can I do?”. Find what to do. Connect with other people. Join a movement (there is one close to you that you have never heard of, because the system was designed to separate. There is one. I promise you. Find it. Join it).

Shout louder. Go protest and take other people to protest who may never have gone without you. Be stronger and more resolute every single day. This is not a far-off, one-off war. This is home for all of us. This is our future and what it will look like.

For me, and I don’t really care how anybody else sees it, this is a war of values, of culture, and philosophy, a war that will have unimaginable consequences for the rest of our lives. We all need to be brave and show up.

No one is allowed to turn their gaze from a dying child, no matter how much pressure is applied to them. If you do this, if you look away, you will not be the owner of your gaze afterward. You will not own your own eyes. You will spend the rest of your days looking at the world through the eyes of a robot, or a slave, and you will know it.

For me, this is what this is about.