I write this with a heavy heart…

In the last two weeks, my brother and my best friend, the closest and dearest men to me, disowned me. My brother told me ”If you go to Israel, you are no longer my brother.” My best friend told me that I am ”supporting ISIS” because I said, ”Israel has the right to defend itself.”

So, I did it. I went to Israel, and I will do it again.

And I said it: ”Israel has the right to defend itself,” and I will say it again.

It is excruciating to lose two brothers in one week, but I had already wasted two decades of my life in Yemen hiding my identity, concealing my opinions, silencing myself, and battering my authentic self only to please everyone around me.

For twenty years, I lived in a blood-stained cage, fearing that if I ever expressed myself, and came out for who I was, I would be hanged by my society before going to Hell.

The Hell of living in Yemen for twenty years was much more painful than losing two brothers.

It is truly agonizing to be disowned by the two men whom I love the most, the men I went to for advice and guidance, especially after having been disowned by my own country and community, my society and my people.

But I will never ever cage my voice, ever again. No matter what the price is.

There is nothing that I cherish more than my freedom of speech. It’s why I worship Sweden (even though it’s a politically deranged country). My pen and my voice is where I draw the line.

The heartwarming news is that although I lost my brother and best friend, countless friends and family members have come forth and shown me real and deep support. Half of them don’t agree with me, but still tell me that I am brave, that they love me and worry for my safety.

This war has made me realize something that I hadn’t realized before. In the Arab world and the Middle East, there are two religions – not one. The first one is Islam, and the second one is Palestine.

Both are sacred. Both drive people into irrationality. Both religions contaminated with an unequivocal distaste for listening to the other side.

I might have lost two brothers in the past two weeks, but I have strengthened my integrity and humanity. I no longer dehumanize Jewish people. I feel more human than I ever did. Going to Israel has been the single most cathartic and revelatory experience in my life, only second to packing my life into a suitcase and moving to Sweden.

If my brother and my best friend are reading this right now, all I have to say to them is:

I’ve got nothing but love for you. No matter how our opinions differ, my door is always open, and you’ll always be my brothers.

You two, if anyone, know how much I suffered in silence.

I am sorry for you being hurt by my voice. But take that pain, double it by a thousand, and you might come close to the pain I felt living in my Yemeni cage for 20 years.

I am not sorry for speaking my truth and defending the values and convictions that I hold dear to my heart. But I am sorry for the mess our culture has made.

You keep talking about how my father was a man of principle, how he died fighting for his values. Well, I carry his genes. But as my father was a pan-Arab nationalist who believed in the Palestinian cause, excuse me for being different, excuse me for being an Arab-Swedish secular reformist who believes in the human cause, instead of "the Palestinian cause."

I am tired of degrading myself trying to explain that I genuinely sympathize with innocent people dying in Gaza. I am tired of stooping myself to defend myself against braindead accusations such as ”you’re justifying a genocide.”

The striking reality is that I care for the innocent people of Gaza (not the Hamas-mobs), and Israel, while my culture cares for the innocent people of Gaza but wishes for the destruction of the innocent people of Israel. That's another red line I draw.

I will not carry the dogma of the Middle East to Europe. I will not carry the antisemitism of the Middle East into Europe. I will fight it, even if it costs me my brothers, even if it costs me my life.