Do you know who Aaron Bushnell was? Perhaps the name is familiar, but most people would be forgiven if they didn’t remember who he was or why they had heard his name. Senior Airman Bushnell, an enlisted man in the United States Air Force, poured an inflammable liquid on himself and committed suicide via self-immolation outside of the gates of the Israeli embassy in Washington to protest American support for Israel in their war against Hamas. SrA Bushnell was famous for a couple of days, but, let’s be honest here, while people do remember the event, the late Mr Bushnell personally wasn’t famous for long.
As we previously reported, Khader Adnan was a long-time Palestinian Arab activist, and at one point a spokesman for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Arrested many times, Mr Adnan’s weapon of choice in detention was the hunger strike. His first hunger strike, ten days long, occurred in 2000, when he was locked up not by the Israelis, but the Palestinian National Authority. In 2011, he began another hunger strike, one which lasted 66 days. In 2015, he undertook a 56-day hunger strike, which resulted in Israel releasing him. He kept getting himself arrested, and finally, after another, much longer 87-day hunger strike, died in prison on May 2, 2023.
We also reported, in February, how several Brown University students went on an eight-day-long hunger strike, and then mocked the quaint story that 30 Harvard students went on a 12 hour hunger strike in solidarity with their fellow Ivy Leaguers.
And now? Roughly 15 pro-Hamas students have gone on a hunger strike at Princeton, and hunger strikes are serious things, but they’ve opened themselves up to justifiable mockery. Continue reading →
