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.
Others are scandalized that Bushnell killing himself is being described as the suicide of a mentally disturbed person, as the police report indicated. “So insulting of MSNBC to list the suicide hotline in the segment on Bushnell’s self-immolation IN PROTEST of Israel’s Gaza slaughter,” tweeted Quincy Institute executive VP Trita Parsi. “They treat him as if he was troubled by inner demons rather than by the massacre of innocents.” In the words of Old El Paso, porque no los dos Trita?
TIME compared Bushnell to Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk who lit himself on fire in protest of the South Vietnamese government in 1963. The action was significant considering Buddhism’s non-violent teachings and the value it places on all living things. Cockburn was not aware that members of the US military and zoomers were renowned for treating the sanctity of human life with a similar reverence.
As far as Cockburn knows, Bushnell was neither a Buddhist nor was his self-immolation intended as a theological statement. According to the Washington Post, Bushnell grew up in the Community of Jesus, a charismatic Christian compound located on Cape Cod. The group has been accused by several former members of emotional abuse.
Hamas, meanwhile, has honored Bushnell as a martyr, saying the US should be held responsible for his death. “He immortalized his name as a defender of human values and the oppression of the suffering Palestinian people because of the American administration and its unjust policies,” Hamas wrote in a Telegram post extending their condolences to Bushnell’s family. The terrorist group has turned down several attemps to negotiate a ceasefire.
