Aaron Bushnell, who died last month, ‘sacrificed everything’ for Palestinians, says mayor of Jericho
A few of the initial paragraphs for context follow - but the article is worth reading fully:
The Palestinian town of Jericho has named a street after Aaron Bushnell, the US air force member who set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington to protest against the war in Gaza.
The 25-year-old, who died on 25 February, “sacrificed everything” for Palestinians, said the mayor of Jericho, Abdul Karim Sidr, as the street sign was unveiled on Sunday.
“We didn’t know him, and he didn’t know us. There were no social, economic or political ties between us. What we share is a love for freedom and a desire to stand against these attacks [on Gaza],” the mayor told a small crowd gathered on the new Aaron Bushnell Road.
Bushnell livestreamed his self-immolation on the social media platform Twitch, declaring he would “no longer be complicit in genocide” and shouting “free Palestine” as he started the fire. Law enforcement officials put out the flames, but he died in hospital several hours later.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 31,000 people, the majority of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The war was triggered by the cross border attack on 7 October when Hamas killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 250 people.
Even as governments in Europe and the US have largely continued to back Israel’s campaign in Gaza as part of the country’s right to self-defence, Palestinians have taken heart from popular protests held from Michigan to Madrid.
Where were all these internet psychologists calling self immolation mentally deranged and suicidal when it was in the Vietnam war history books?
There was that Islamophobic Buddhist monk who self-immolated in Sri Lanka in 2013 to protest Muslim butchers. People across the spectrum weighed in on the idea of burning yourself alive to protect cattle. I don’t recall anyone calling it crazy then. At most, reprehensible, misguided, etc. But the idea you’d kill yourself to protest the treatment of cattle/Muslim butchers wasn’t considered “crazy” at the time.
The line seems to be when you’d do it not just for cattle, but also for Palestinians? Is that the conclusion I’m supposed to draw? That’s when self-immolation starts becoming “crazy?”
No, the difference is the person who did it. You’re probably reading western news and opinions. Those people feel like they have a similar perspective to Bushnell, which they probably don’t feel they share with a Sri Lankan monk, so they don’t judge- but they do judge the person they relate to. To make it related to just US politics for example, if someone self-immolated in either support or opposition of Trump then most Americans would consider them crazy.
I’m actually ok with people self-immolating in support of Trump.
That’s so accurate.
I really don’t understand, my definition of Liberal has always been “Favoring reform, open to new ideas, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; not bound by traditional thinking; broad-minded” which is something I subscribe to. Before I came to lemmy I never even heard of people refer to liberals as anything other than that.
Now if you were to say “Liberal Party of NY” or “Liberal Party of Canada” etc then I can see how more specific political beliefs across their ranks could be made points out of, but if you just say all Liberals then you sound like a frother to me.
What they mean is neo-liberal which requires some reading. “Classical” liberal politics has been dead for a few decades.
Idk about that, the NY Liberal Party started in 1940 which barred Communist Party members from joining (other than their founding members). Seems like the more classical liberalism examples were more conservative to me.
In America the Democrats are considered “liberal” as they adopt left policies when they become too popular to ignore. Some examples :
Black rights(MLK, Malcolm X), Vietnam war, Iraq, Afghanistan.
When they happened and you spoke out, liberals would ridicule you. “No America wouldn’t commit war crimes in Iraq they are the terrorists and we’re the heroes”!
Now the same is happening for israel which are clearly committing a Genocide yet the liberals are frantically supporting it. When you say “stop doing Nazi shit” they look at you like you’re the crazy one. Now public opinion is shifting so hard they are starting to turn and will pretend they were on the “correct side” all along
Liberals were pushing back against all of the “leftie” policies until public opinion shifted so far that they decided to jump ship for voters.
Don’t forget marriage equality. It was Bill Clinton who championed the Defense of Marriage Act and signed it into law.
People have forgotten that Bill Clinton won his second term by championing himself as having the best aspects of the Democrats and the Republicans (basically he called himself the Hannah Montana of politics) and Hillary Clinton believed abortion was a states’ right issue (the mess we have today).
Once again, the definition in your social circles which are commonplace here on Lemmy directly contradict the actual definition of the political stance.
You can thank (American) politics for that. Where left is right and right is extreme right. Terms get hijacked by everyone until they lose their meaning.
In fact most Western countries with “liberal” parties still support israel.
What is still in line with the definition is that liberals accept policies from the progressives once they become popular enough to win votes with. Liberals are against thing until it becomes unpopular to be against thing.
Only 9 countries opposed the UN Resolution on Gaza in December:
Austria Czechia Guatemala Liberia Micronesia Nauru Papua New Guinea Paraguay USAYes because it started becoming severely unpopular. Check how many were opposing it before that.
Also many countries such as Germany and Canada are still sending israel weapons for Genocide.
Cool so we agreed you lied.
Sending weapons to a country actively committing Genocide does mean they support them.
Voting for a ceasefire full well knowing the US will veto it changes nothing.
Liberals tend to say that the system just needs a few tweaks here and there while the reality is that the entire thing is rotten to the core and the stuff they enjoy now in their “developed” countries was built upon centuries of exploitation of other people, which is still ongoing stronger than ever.
When confronted with these facts, some liberals act defensively and instead of learning and growing in their understanding, they start aligning with right wing thinking. That’s why the saying goes “scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds”.
I assure you that destroying democracy and rule of law will not lead to good outcomes for you or anyone else, and certainly doesn’t fit the definition of “progressive reform.”
Beyond accurate. Malcolm X and Dr King were both correct how Liberals stand in the way of progress.
At some recent point, we decided that clearly ambiguous, philosophical questions had hard, fast, and absolute answers.