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AFTER SETTING HIMSELF ON FIRE, US AIRMAN AARON BUSHNELL DIES
DECLARING ‘FREE PALESTINE’  
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Brett Wilkins
February 26, 2024
Common Dreams [[link removed]]

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_ "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." _

Aaron Bushnell, an active duty U.S. airman, died on February 25, 2024
after self-immolating outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C.
to protest the Gaza genocide. , (Photo: Talia Jane/X)

 

"My name is Aaron Bushnell, I am an active-duty member of the United
States Air Force, and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I'm
about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what
people have been experiencing in Palestine
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colonizers, it's not extreme at all."

That's how the 25-year-old introduced himself—and bade farewell—to
the world in a livestream video of his Sunday afternoon walk to the
Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. Arriving outside the front gate,
Bushnell set down his phone, took eight paces, turned to face the
camera, doused himself in an unknown accelerant, donned his service
cap, and set himself alight. He repeatedly screamed "Free Palestine"
as he burned.

Uniformed Secret Service officers arrived on the scene even before
Bushnell was able to ignite the fire. They repeatedly ordered him to
"get on the ground."

"Get on the ground, you fucker," someone—presumably an officer—can
be heard saying in the video as Bushnell screams and writhes in agony.
He managed one final, garbled yet unmistakable shout of "free
Palestine" as his body was engulfed in flames.

_NOTE: THE FOLLOWING VIDEO CONTAINS BLURRED GRAPHIC IMAGES THAT SOME
READERS MAY FIND DISTURBING._

Nearly two-and-a-half minutes into the video, an officer in a white
shirt rushes in with an extinguisher while an officer points his
pistol at Bushnell's burning body.

"I don't need guns," implored the man in the white shirt, "I need fire
extinguishers."

_NPR_reported
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was rushed to a hospital in critical condition. He died Sunday
evening.

Bushnell left a final message on social media early Sunday morning.

"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?'" he wrote
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post in nearly six years. "The answer is, you're doing it. Right now."

Some observers criticized U.S. corporate media outlets for publishing
articles with headlines omitting the words "Gaza
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Others took aim at reports attributing Bushnell's act to mental health
issues.

"They will try to spin-doctor it as mental health issues, but he was
rational and clear about his political reasoning, which resonates with
[the] majority of the world," Syracuse University professor Farhana
Sultana said on social media. "May his sacrifice not be in vain.
Indeed. it was legitimate moral outrage and courage against the
holocaust and barbarity in Palestine with U.S. full participation. May
his sacrifice not be in vain, may his last words on this earth ring
true. #FreePalestine."

_CounterPunch_ editor Joshua Frank wrote
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"Please, stop saying Aaron Bushnell was mentally ill. The real mental
illness is witnessing a genocide taking place and not doing a thing to
stop it."

More than 100,000 Palestinians—mostly women and children—have been
killed or wounded by Israeli bombs and bullets since the October 7
attacks on Israel. Around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been
forcibly displaced, and at least hundreds of thousands of Gazans are
on the brink of starvation.

The U.S. government backs Israel with nearly $4 billion in annual
military aid and diplomatic support including three vetoes
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Nations Security Council cease-fire resolutions. The Biden
administration is seeking
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additional $14.3 billion in armed assistance for Israel, and
has twice sidestepped 
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to fast-track emergency military aid.

Last month, _The Intercept_reported
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documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request
suggested that the Biden administration deployed a U.S. Air Force team
to Israel to assist the Israel Defense Forces with targeting
intelligence.

Bushnell's death is the second reported U.S. self-immolation since the
start of the Gaza genocide. On December 1, a woman—whose identity
and outcome remain unknown—carrying a Palestinian flag was
hospitalized in critical condition after setting herself alight
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the Israeli consulate in Atlanta.

Police called it an "act of extreme political protest." Israeli
Consul-General Anat Sultan-Dadon called it an act of "hate and
incitement toward Israel."

People have set themselves on fire as an act of political protest for
many centuries. Following the examples of Vietnamese Buddhist monks
and nuns who self-immolated in 1963 to protest persecution by the
U.S.-backed Ngô Đình Diệm dictatorship, at least half a dozen
Americans burned themselves to death to protest the Vietnam War.
Americans also self-immolated over the 1991 and 2003 invasions of
Iraq, the climate emergency, alleged corruption at the U.S. Department
of Veterans Affairs, and other reasons.

In December 2010, the self-immolation of Tunisian street
vendor Mohamed Bouazizi
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a major catalyst for the Arab Spring uprising that swept across North
Africa and the Middle East.

The late Vietnamese Buddhist monk, peace activist, and author Thích
Nhất Hạnh explained
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a letter to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr
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monks and nuns who self-immolated were not committing suicide. Rather,
their self-sacrifices were aimed "at moving the hearts of the
oppressors, and at calling the attention of the world to the suffering
endured."

"It is done," he explained
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"to wake us up."

_Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams._

* Israel-Gaza War
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* Protest
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* Self-immolation
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