US serviceman sets himself on fire outside Israeli embassy in protest over Gaza genocide

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Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 26/02/2024 - 10:40pm in

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abuse, Apartheid, Buddhism, Gaza, genocide, Israel, military, occupation, Palestine, Palestinians, Protest, public opinion, veterans, Video, Vietnam, War Crimes, zionism

Aaron Bushnell says he can no longer ‘be complicit in genocide’ in Gaza

A US airman has set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington DC in protest against Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. Aaron Bushnell, an active duty serviceman, recorded a video en route to the embassy gates in which he said he could ‘no longer be complicit in genocide’. Despite the terrible protest he was about to make, he seemed quite calm and composed, saying that what he was about to suffer was nothing compared to the suffering of innocent Palestinians 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 colonisers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.

Aaron Bushnell

Security personnel attempted to put out the fire before Bushnell was rushed to hospital with extensive burns, but family members said that he later died of his injuries.

Before the act, which he reportedly live-streamed, Bushnell sent a message to news agencies:

Today, I am planning to engage in an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people.

Bushnell is said to have worked in IT for the US air force. Whether that led him to seeing things that his conscience couldn’t bear is not know. His last words were ‘Free Palestine’. Police pointed guns at him as he burned.

The protest was reminiscent of Thich Quang Duc, Vietnamese Buddhist monk and the first of several to do so, who set himself on fire in protest against the persecution of Buddhists by the US-friendly South Vietnamese government in the 1960s. Duc’s sacrifice galvanised public opinion around the world and focused international attention on Vietnam.

Another victim of Israel’s genocide and war crimes, Bushnell clearly hoped that his protest would do the same and shock a complacent US government and (in part) public into action against the apartheid occupation regime and its war crimes.

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