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The war in Gaza has claimed another victim — this time on American soil. Airman Aaron Bushnell died on Sunday night after lighting himself on fire in protest of the war. Bushnell filmed his protest in front of the Israeli Embassy on Sunday and livestreamed it on Twitch, quickly becoming a martyr for the far left. Well, some of them.
“I will no longer be complicit in genocide,” Bushnell said in the video. “I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all.” Bushnell then lit himself on fire while screaming, “Free Palestine,” until he fell to the ground. The video shows police officers working for more than a minute to put the fire out.
Before beginning his livestream, Bushnell posted a cryptic message on Facebook. “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now,” he wrote.
A DC police report from the incident describes how a unit from the Secret Service Uniformed Division “received a distress call regarding an individual exhibiting signs of mental distress outside the Israeli Embassy.” Before officers could engage, however, Bushnell had set himself alight.
Instead of treating Bushnell’s death as a tragic suicide, pro-Palestine politicians and activists are branding it a sacrifice. Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein appeared to completely rule out any mental health factors in the incident. “Rest in power Aaron Bushnell,” she posted. “May his sacrifice deepen our commitment to stop genocide now.”
Independent candidate for president Cornel West also expressed his admiration for Bushnell. “Let us never forget the extraordinary courage and commitment of brother Aaron Bushnell who died for truth and justice! I pray for his precious loved ones,” he posted on X. “Let us rededicate ourselves to genuine solidarity with Palestinians undergoing genocidal attacks in real time!” Cockburn expects to see Stein and West’s campaigns self-immolate in a show of esprit de corps soon enough.
Of course, some on the left aren’t happy about Bushnell’s sacrifice, or more specifically, about posts fellow leftists have made. Many are aggrieved at the use of phrases that “belong” to the black community. “Rest in power,” for example, apparently cannot be used in honor of a white, serviceman, one user explained. “Black people have asked time and time again not to use this outside of the community. And every single time you do,” one user said.
Can the US airman who set himself on fire ‘Rest in Power?’
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