“Free Palestine!”: Active Duty Air Force Member and Anarchist Aaron Bushnell Dies After Act of Self-Immolation in front of Israeli Embassy in DC

On February 25th, 25 year-old Aaron Bushnell, an active duty member of the US Air Force, set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC, in an act of protest against the continued US support of the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people by the state of Israel.

Bushnell livestreamed what he described as “an extreme act of protest.” As CrimethInc. wrote:

In the video, Aaron begins by introducing himself. “My name is Aaron Bushnell. I am an active-duty member of the US Air Force and 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.”

The video shows Aaron continuing to film as he walks to the gate of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, puts down the phone, douses himself in a flammable liquid, and sets himself alight, shouting “Free Palestine” several times. After he collapses, police officers who had been watching the situation unfold run into the frame—one with a fire extinguisher, another with a gun. The officer continues pointing the gun at Aaron for over thirty seconds as Aaron lies on the ground, burning.

Although Bushnell was rushed to the hospital, he sadly succumb to his injuries. As CrimethInc. noted:

The scale of the tragedy that is taking place in Gaza is heartrending. It exceeds anything we can understand from the vantage point of the United States. Over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, including over 12,000 children. More than half of all inhabitable buildings in all of Gaza have been destroyed, along with the majority of hospitals. The vast majority of the population are living as refugees with little access to water, food, or shelter.

The Israeli military is now planning a ground invasion of Rafah that will add untold numbers of casualties to this toll. It is not hyperbole to say that we are witnessing the deliberate commission of genocide. All available evidence indicates that the Israeli military will continue killing Palestinians by the thousand until they are forced to stop. And the longer this bloodshed goes on, the more people will die in the future, as other governments and groups imitate the precedent set by the Israeli government.

The United States government bears equal responsibility in this tragedy, having armed and financed Israel and provided it with impunity in the sphere of international relations. Within Israel, the authorities have effectively suppressed protest movements in solidarity with Gaza. If protests are going to exert leverage towards stopping the genocide, it is up to people in the United States to figure out how to accomplish that.

But what will it take? Thousands across the country have engaged in brave acts of protest without yet succeeding in putting a halt to Israel’s assault.

Aaron Bushnell was one of those who empathized with the Palestinians suffering and dying in Gaza, one of those haunted by the question of what our responsibilities are when we are confronted with such a tragedy. In this regard, he was exemplary. We honor his desire not to stand by passively in the face of atrocity.

Aaron was the second person to self-immolate at an Israeli diplomatic institution in the United States. Another demonstrator did the same thing at the Israeli consulate in Atlanta on December 1, 2023. It is not easy for us to know how to speak about their deaths.

Let’s not glamorize the decision to end one’s life, nor celebrate anything with such permanent repercussions. Rather than exalting Aaron as a martyr and encouraging others to emulate him, we honor his memory, but we exhort you to take a different path.

According to both posts on social media and sources which corroborated with It’s Going Down, Bushnell identified as an anarchist and was involved in supporting and participating in a variety of mutual aid projects.

As one group in Ohio that Bushnell was involved in, Serve the People Akron, wrote on social media:

Aaron was a valued member of our organization and the community who immediately jumped in to help the unhoused and any project that came up. He was dependable and persistent with the mutual aid work he did in a city that was still new to him. We will be forever grateful for the effort he put in to make Akron a better place.

Another mutual aid group based in San Antonio, Texas stated:

Bushnell did incredible work here in San Antonio for various mutual aid and unhoused coalitions. He spent every penny and second he had on serving his community…And living his anarchist principles in action.

CrimethInc. has recently compiled a collection of person reflections from Aaron’s friends and some of his own personal writings on his anarchist ideals. On anarchism, Aaron writes:

I am an anarchist, which means I believe in the abolition of all hierarchical power structures, especially capitalism and the state… I view the work we do as fighting back in the class war which the capitalist class wages on the rest of humanity. This also informs the way in which I want to organize, as I believe that any hierarchical power structure is bound to reproduce class dynamics and oppression. Thus, I want to engage in egalitarian forms of organizing that produce horizontal power structures based on mutual aid and solidarity, which are capable of liberating humans…

I favor consensus-based decision-making over “democratic” or voting-based governance.

Following Bushnell’s death, mourners gathered outside of the Israeli embassy in DC. More vigils and expressions of solidarity are scheduled to take place in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Long Beach, California, and Chicago in the coming days.

As many others have already pointed out, much of the Centrist and liberal media attempted to downplay the political nature of Bushnell’s protest. As Kelly Hayes wrote from the Movement Memos podcast:

Despite the fact that Bushnell died while engaging in what he called “an extreme act of protest,” multiple major news outlets ran headlines that depoliticized his tragic death. A New York Times headline read, “Man Dies After Setting Himself on Fire Outside Israeli Embassy in Washington, Air Force Says.” CNN and Reuters both ran the headline, “US airman sets himself on fire outside Israeli Embassy in Washington.” The Washington Post took a similar approach, opting for the language, “Active-duty airman sets himself on fire outside Israeli Embassy in Washington.” An article about Bushnell published by NPR stated, “As of Monday morning, NPR was not able to independently verify the man’s motives.”

Predictably, far-Right grifters and outlets have latched onto Bushnell’s anarchist beliefs, painting him liking various anarchist groups and projects on social media as “links” to an “anarchist past,” in an attempt to distract and goad their audiences. Writing on Twitter, far-Right pundit Ben Shapiro wrote, “Call me controversial, but I think that as a general rule, you should not cheer on disturbed anarchists burning themselves to death to protest a non-existent genocide on behalf of an actual genocidal terrorist group.”

Outside the echo-chamber of far-Right internet trolls and social media influeners, in the real world, anti-capitalist and anarchist views and movements have been gaining traction over the past decade across the United States. The fact that Bushnell, a Zoomer from Massachusetts who came from a Christian background and was an active member of the Air Force, was a part of that movement, is only testament to this. In the face of this reality, those on the Right and the Center must rush to paint Bushnell as “disturbed,” as the only alternative is grappling with the ongoing horrors of genocide and government orchestrated mass murder that Bushnell was.

Protests against the ongoing war and genocide in Gaza continue as calls for a ceasefire are only growing louder and more popular. A recent US poll reported on by USA Today found that 75% of American Muslims supported a ceasefire, while half of American Jews do as well. Another poll conducted by Reuters found that nearly 70% of all Americans back a ceasefire as well.

Bushnell’s horrific death take place against another grizzly milestone – as the total of Palestinian deaths in Gaza hits 30,000 and Israel prepares to invade the city of Rafah, where currently over a million refugees are now living in tent cities. In a recent speech broadcast on US television, Israeli president Netanyahu stated that, “We’re on the same page with the US on this,” signally the continued support of the Biden administration to the ongoing horror on the ground. When asked recently about Bushnell’s final act of self-immolation, Pentagon spokesperson Pat Ryder stated in a press conference, “…our support for Israel’s inherent right to defend itself is ironclad..,” as if to only solidify some of Aaron’s last words, “This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”