How do we make this genocide stop?
Aaron Bushnell tried, as did Rachel Corrie
Most people have heard that on February 25th, Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old active duty member of the US Air Force, set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, to protest his government’s complicity in the Gaza genocide. As he burned, he screamed, “Free Palestine.” He died later in hospital.
Explaining what he intended to do in a video, he said “I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I am 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.”
Some western commentators have tried to dismiss Bushnell’s protest as mental illness. But US Marine Corps veteran Brian Berletic said labelling those who bravely speak up as mentally ill is a way to avoid confronting their own moral cowardice. Shamefully, The Guardian tried to smear him, saying he had an anarchist past and was a member of a religious sect on Cape Cod.
Meanwhile, Israel’s murderous genocide grinds on. Save the Children warned that every single one of the million children in Gaza is facing death by Israeli bombs, starvation or disease, while Israel blocks aid convoys from entering Gaza.
There’s no shortage of food for IDF soldiers who’ve been photographed in their tanks chowing down on McDonald’s hamburgers and fries, donated by the fast food chain. Since October 7, McDonald’s Israel has not only provided thousands of free meals but has offered IDF forces a 50% discount, doing its part to support the genocide.
Aaron Bushnell’s death isn’t so different from that of another young American, Rachel Corrie. Twenty-one years ago, she was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer as she tried to prevent a Palestinian home in Rafah from being demolished, the same city where 1.2 million Palestinians are starving today.
Two weeks before she died, she wrote an email to her mother: “I’m witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I’m really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don’t think it’s an extremist thing to do anymore.”
My son wrote a poem about Aaron Bushnell. It can be found here.