I'm Just So Damned Tired Of All Of It

Please forgive my long silence. I'm trying to write, but it's not going very well.

Christoph Reichwein/picture alliance via Getty Images

I am so tired of writing about the genocide.

I’m tired of watching the genocide, reading about the genocide, weeping, railing, yelling about the genocide.

I’m tired of having nightmares about the genocide. During the day.

I’m tired of not sleeping because of the genocide, of grieving for all those killed in the genocide, or rather not grieving, repressing my grief until an appropriate time because I have too much work to do. December looks promising.

I’m tired of all the drugs I take to cope with my utter failure to protect the people dying in this genocide, and to cope with the fact that I can’t even grieve them.

I'm tired of the rage coursing through my veins for the amputees, the sick, the starving, most of whom are children. In January, CNN reported that at least 10 children per day were losing a limb having their limbs removed, mostly without anesthesia, due to Israeli bombings and untreated infections.

I'm tired of seeing people burned alive, seeing people beheaded, seeing people dismembered, seeing people melted.

I'm tired of listening to Israeli soldiers and officials speak of Palestinians as insects, as animals, as inferior to them.

I'm tired of listening to Zionists say babies are terrorists.

I'm tired of Israelis protesting soldiers being held accountable for raping a Palestinian man to death—not protesting the rapes, protesting accountability for the crimes.

I’m tired of the pogroms in the West Bank, the settler murders of Palestinians with impunity, and IDF soldiers protecting and helping them.

I’m tired of listening to Israeli politicians say things like “No one in the world will allow us to starve 2 million people, even though it might be justified and moral in order to free the hostages” (Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of Finance for the State of Israel).

I'm tired of the Western media covering neither the documented UN reports of Israeli rapes of Palestinians, nor the torture camps.

I’m tired of Zionists being “offended” when artists speak out about the genocide, as if that isn’t exactly the kind of thing artists are supposed to do.

I’m tired of the U.S. and Israel bombing impoverished Yemen when, until quite recently, all they had done was block ship traffic to and from Israel to try and stop the genocide. Yemen has the death of one Israeli on their hands, but the U.S. and Israel keep killing them anyway.

I’m tired of seeing Lebanese children bombed to death by Israel.

I'm tired of waiting for my friend Rachel's family to be bombed into oblivion with my tax dollars so I no longer have to watch them starve, watch her niece writhe in pain from terrible burns that aren't healing, courtesy of the bombs which murdered her mother and siblings, nor hear about the 14 children struggling with hepatitis who cannot escape to medical care because Israel won't let them.

I’m tired of learning about all sorts of nifty new horrific bombs that Israel is testing out on Palestinians before putting on the market. I’m tired of them being U.S.-made bombs.

I'm tired of the persecution of students for taking what they learned and putting it to use.

I’m tired of the U.S. Government speaking of “Iranian-backed Hamas” when Israel co-created Hamas and was funding it until at least 2020.

I'm tired of the New York Times’ and the Washington Post’s coverage of this genocide. Seriously, when we finally get Nuremberg trials for Palestine, they’re both going to be in the docks

I'm so tired of Israel's lies, propaganda, and manipulation.

I'm tired of Zionists crying “anti-semitism” every time someone dares to point out that Israel is committing genocide and, oh, yeah, genocides are bad. Seriously, did none of their parents read them the story of the boy who cried wolf?

I'm tired of Israeli soldiers broadcasting their sadistic, racist atrocities all over Telegram. I'm tired of their arrogance, their narcissism, their profound conviction of their own superiority. I’m tired of their smug faces filled with psychopathy.

I'm tired most of all of Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump, and (almost) everyone in Congress but especially John Hickenlooper. I'm tired of their jolly participation in this genocide in my name and with my tax dollars.

I'm tired of the genocide apologists at the White House Press Conference podium telling us they're waiting to hear back from Israel after Israel investigates Israel's Crime Against Humanity du Jour before considering, uh, doing something? Oh, and while we're at it, let's ask the cat to investigate how it is all these mice strangely seem to keep turning up dead. Odd that.

I’m tired of the bullshit story that the U.S. pretty-please-really-wants-a-ceasefire-here’s-20-billion-dollars-of-weapons-to-keep-you-going.

I'm tired of the Democratic Party's self-enslavement to Kahanist Zionists for funding, and I'm tired of the Republican Party for the exact same reason.

I'm tired of people treating Tim Walz like he's the dad they wished they’d had. Tim Walz is a politician with a Masters in Genocide Studies who has yet to call for an arms embargo against Israel. He’s not the dad I wished I’d had.

I'm tired of people getting pissed off at me for demanding the first Black woman ever to run on a major ticket for President of the U.S. stop sending billions of dollars of arms to prosecute a genocide of brown-skinned people if she wants my vote, when I demanded the same thing of the demented white man who chose her to succeed him.

She hasn't even been running for President that long and already I'm tired of Kamala Harris saying, “I'm speaking.” I'm so tired of people saying that makes her a “girlboss.”

I’m tired of people saying I’m voting for fascism if I don’t vote for a woman who is part of an Administration sending arms to a state committing genocide, and has said she does not support an arms embargo against Israel. (For all my railing against the Times, today they printed a guest editorial suggesting Harris just enforce the Leahy law, a novel concept I’ve been raving to my husband about for months).

I'm tired of people who advocate for a woman's right to choose limiting that advocacy to within the borders of Rome instead of the borders of the Empire.

What about Palestinian women's reproductive freedom, their right not to have their children shot in the head, blown apart, melted, kidnapped, tortured and raped? What about their right not to be bombed whilst in labor, or their right to anesthesia during a Caesarian section?

What about Israeli women's rights to raise their children not to become torturers, rapists and murderers in the name of national security. What about their right not to see their children taken prisoners of war, or come home in a body bag?

What about their rights not to visit their conscientious objector children in prison?

It's August. I'm a farmer. It's normal for me to be tired this time of year. But this isn't the bone-deep tired of farming. This isn't the dizziness of too much heat and not enough water, nor the sleeplessness that comes with menopause. This isn't the stress of hard work and no money.

I'm tired beyond my ability to express in English of the U.S.-Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people. I'm tired of paying for it, witnessing it, surviving it.

Can you begin to imagine the degree of exhaustion Palestinians feel? Is there even a word for it?

I'm a writer, I should know these things, but nothing comes to mind because I’m just so damned tired.