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Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), an Army veteran and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, unveiled two bills on Thursday in response to a radical, far-left airman’s self-immolation in front of the Israeli embassy in D.C. as a protest against Israel’s military actions following a Hamas terrorist attack in October, Breitbart News has learned exclusively.
One of Cotton’s bills aims to prohibit members of the military who sympathize with terrorist groups from obtaining security clearances, while the other seeks to restrict off-post protests by active-duty service members.
In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News, Cotton remarked, “Our service members are tasked with defending America, and individuals supporting Hamas or any terrorist organization should not have access to security clearances. Moreover, active-duty military personnel should not be permitted to participate in demonstrations that undermine the security of America and its allies.”
The airman, Aaron Bushnell, served as a senior airman and cyber defense operations specialist with the 531st Intelligence Support Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio Lackland, Texas, since May 2020.
Prior to his self-immolation, Bushnell streamed a statement online, declaring, “My name is Aaron Bushnell. I am an active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force, and I will no longer be complicit in genocide.” He went on to describe his act as a form of protest against what he perceived as the oppression of Palestinians.
Following Bushnell’s self-immolation, various posts from his Reddit account were uncovered and shared online. These posts included statements where he defended Hamas’s actions, including their targeting of civilians during a music festival. He wrote, “…those people’s fun at the music festival was specifically built on Palestinian suffering. There are no innocent civilians in [settler] colonialism. Being a settler is inherently violent.”
Additionally, he asserted, “Israel is a white supremacist, ethnonationalist, settler-colonial apartheid state. It was created by the UK 75 years ago and is propped up by US support. It has no right to exist.”
On a related note, Cotton introduced a bill on Wednesday to escalate penalties for violence during protests, prompted by a surge of far-left demonstrations against Israel throughout the country.
