26 February 2024. Aaron Bushnell 25 years old.

An active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force set himself on fire yesterday outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., in protest of the Biden administration’s enabling of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

“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 at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”

“He is one of the most principled comrades I’ve ever known,” said Xylem, who worked with Bushnell to support San Antonio’s unhoused residents. “He’s always trying to think about how we can actually achieve liberation for all with a smile on his face,” said Errico.

Children, women and men in Gaza are being burned alive, are suffocating to death under collapsed buildings, are having operations and amputations without anaesthesia, are starving to death, are watching their loved ones die in front of them, are experiencing suffering of a degree that very few of us here in the west can even imagine. And our ruling class is absolutely attempting to normalize this for us. (Caitlin Johnstone).

Aaron’s last words were “Free Palestine”.

A police officer showed up pointing a gun at the man’s burning body; I guess that’s just what American cops do when they aren’t sure what to do. Someone who was actually trying to save the man reportedly yelled “I don’t need guns, I need fire extinguishers!” (Caitlin Johnstone).

You simply cannot fit more America into a single incident than a man dying a horrifying death in protest of war crimes while a first responder screams at cops to stop pointing their guns at him and go get fire extinguishers. If you were to pick a single moment in history to sum up the essence and expression of the US empire, that would be it (Caitlin Johnstone).

Comments: This shows that even people living so far off are so traumatised … Just imagine the what the Palestinians are going through. I feel so sad about what this poor man went through and how his loved ones must be feeling … I wonder what spin the government is going to put on this story … Had the war on Gaza ‘pushed him over the edge’, as the saying goes? Probably. It was too much for a sensitive soul to bear.

Last December a protester set herself on fire outside the Israeli Consulate in Atlanta, Georgia USA.

Aaron, of course, was not guilty of the crimes committed in Gaza.  The only ones guilty of these crimes, however, are those who directly carry them out or provide direct support (arms, intelligence, etc.) to the culprits.

Imagine if this had happened in front of the Kremlin – it would be front page news all over the Western world by today. Bendith arno a’i deulu. Blessings on his soul. Blessings on his family and friends.