AARON Bushnell, the United States Air Force cyber defence operations specialist, who self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, while screaming “Free Palestine ‘’ has shaken the conscience of the whole world except Israel. The extreme protest by Bushnell has come in the wake of an assault that Israel launched on Gaza after Hamas fighters attacked Israel on October 7, killing at least 1,139 people and seizing about 250 as hostages. Since those attacks, Israel has bombarded the Palestinian territory from air, land and sea and launched a ground invasion. More than 30,000 people have been killed in the Israeli assault, while the campaign in Gaza has left much of the territory in ruins and displaced more than 80% of its population.
This is not the first instance of self-immolation for support for Gaza victims. In December 2023, a protester set herself on fire outside the Israeli Consulate in Atlanta. A Palestinian flag was found at the scene and the act was believed to be one of “extreme political protest”. The latest protestor, 25-year-old active service airman, Aaron Bushnell, who was stationed at the Lackland Air Force base with the 531st Intelligence Support Squadron in San Antonio, Texas, died from his injuries according to the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, DC. US media reports said Bushnell live streamed himself on the social media platform Twitch, wearing fatigues and declaring he would “not be complicit in genocide” before dousing himself in liquid on February 25, 2024.
Shortly before his final act in this world, Bushnell posted the following 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.” Retaliating to Israel’s war on Gaza, Bushnell appears to have grown disillusioned with the US military and his own role as a service member, according to posts on the online forum Reddit under a handle matching one used by Bushnell.
Self-immolation is not a new form of political protest, but it is by no means a common one. Dozens of Buddhist monks committed self-immolation to protest the suppression of Buddhist leaders in Vietnam in the middle of the last century to draw attention to the US attacks on their homeland. Then the practice spread to the Soviet Bloc. It began when hope died. In 1968, students in Warsaw and Prague protested, much like students elsewhere in the West that year. In Czechoslovakia, the leadership of the Communist Party instituted liberal reforms, relaxing censorship and promising to build “socialism with a human face.” It was known as the “Prague Spring”. Little is known about Aaron Bushnell. His Facebook page shows that he had been following the war in Gaza and admired Palestinian American Rashida Tlaib, a Democratic Congresswoman from Michigan. We know that Bushnell belonged to a generation of Americans—adults under the age of thirty—who express more sympathy with Palestinians than with Israelis in the current conflict. That he was a member of the military surely made matters worse.
Bushnell wrote a will in which he left his savings to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. Perhaps he had watched the hearing of a case in federal court in California, brought by Defense for Children International-Palestine in an attempt to stop the Biden Administration from continuing to aid the Israeli attacks on Gaza. Perhaps he saw the US government argue that there is no legal pathway for citizens to stop the government from providing military aid, even if it can be shown that the aid is used to genocidal ends. A few days later, the judge in the case, Jeffrey White, said that the legal system could indeed do nothing.
It is probable that Bushnell was aware of the proceedings of South Africa’s case against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Perhaps, he was exposed to the incessant coverage of the Israeli atrocities against women and children of Gaza and the majority of the besieged and beleaguered Gazans who are experiencing extreme hunger. He was cognizant of the fact that the ICJ ordered Israel to take immediate measures to protect Palestinian civilians but Israel has ignored the ruling, and the United States has vetoed resolutions calling for a ceasefire and argued, in another ICJ case, that the court should not order Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
In Bushnell’s opinion, he had sworn to protect the US with his life, but instead, his government was subverting mechanisms created to enforce international law, including legislation—such as the Genocide Convention—that the United States had played a key role in drafting. It is now apparent that Bushnell planned his self-immolation carefully. He made final arrangements. He contacted the media. On the day of the action, he carried himself with purpose. His movements appeared rehearsed. Perhaps he dreamed that his protest would awaken a country that had descended into a moral stupor.
Bushnell’s death has sparked a fierce debate online, with some people describing his death as ipso facto proof that he was “mentally ill” and many commentators reject the notion that a suicidal action could ever constitute a “legitimate form of protest”. Bushnell’s actions, according to this view, should not be seen as a political gesture, but only as a “cry for help.” The fact is that not only was the video painful to watch, although it has since been removed by Twitch but it is a grim expression that a USAF serviceman could be so moved that he would go to the extent of taking his own life. Contrarily, in an interview with CBS News on the same day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the Israeli offensive in the face of international criticism, saying America would be “doing a hell of a lot more” if it had suffered such an attack. Bushnell’s unequivocal call: “Free Palestine” should be heeded.
S. M. Hali
The writer is a Retired Group Captain of PAF, who has written several books on China. He can be reached at email: [email protected]