On the 25th of Feb 2025, vigils were held in many places for Aaron Bushnell. One of these was in front of City Hall in St Petersburg FL, hosted by the Uhuru Party which calls St Pete one of their two home bases. Activists from many groups showed up from as far away as Ocala.
A representative of the American Indian Movement (AIM) spoke as well, emphasizing that the US occupation of Turtle Island and the US-funded Israeli occupation of Palestine are basically the same thing. The term “Manifest Destiny” is just as valid describing Netanyahu’s brutal ambitions as it was for describing Andrew Jackson’s murderous anti-Indigenous ways.
One year ago on Feb 25, active duty US Airman Aaron Bushnell showed up at the Israeli Embassy and set himself on fire, yelling “Free Palestine!” Before doing so, he said the “extreme act of protest” he was about to carry out was not extreme at all compared to the suffering imposed on Palestinians by Israel.
Now, with so many Palestinians coming home from Israeli dungeons in the Flood of the Free bearing marks of extreme torture, we see this is clearly the case. There are also the thousands of Palestinians burned alive by Israel’s white phosphorus and similar bombs. High explosive bombs usually kill by blast, fragmentation, and by collapsing buildings onto their occupants but can also start deadly fires as well.
Compared to this, Aaron is right: there is nothing extreme about his martyrdom, recognized as such by multiple fighting resistance groups in Occupied Palestine.