A devastating act of reason

February 28, 2024

DHAKA – Amid widespread, near-daily protests in the US demanding a ceasefire in Israel’s attacks on Palestine, an active-duty member of the US Air Force set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC on February 25, and died. The man, identifying himself as Aaron Bushnell, said, “I will no longer be complicit in genocide,” in a video of the incident obtained and reviewed by CNN. His words are significant; an active-duty member in the US Air Force knows far more than an ordinary protester. Before lighting himself on fire, Bushnell said that what he was about to do was minimal compared to the suffering of Palestinians. Bushnell yelled “Free Palestine” repeatedly, till he collapsed.

The video—which he live-streamed on Twitch—and the act itself, speak volumes. Allegedly, police were in the scene from the beginning but were only able to extinguish the fire after Bushnell collapsed, as “some officers pointed guns at the protester, while others called for fire extinguishers,” according to the Atlanta Community Press Collective. This particular information has not been reported by major media outlets. One cannot simply shun this self-immolation as an act of “anti-Semitism,” or “terrorism,” or as a personal case of “insanity.” Questions need to be asked and many questions come to mind. Did this man protest to his peers and seniors in the US Air Force? Did he see things that led him to think, “I will not be complicit”? Why did he reach this level of despair in a democratic country like the US?

This is the second time that a person has set themselves on fire in front of an Israeli official building in the US. In December last year, a woman set herself on fire in front of the Israeli consulate