Reuters Mocks, Denies Self-Immolator

Three months before Aaron Bushnell's act of courage in DC, a woman carrying a Palestinian flag self-immolated in front of the Israeli consulate in Atlanta. I haven't been able to find out her name.

Almost three months before Aaron Bushnell self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, there was a similar incident in Atlanta in which, according to a December 2 report from Reuters, a “protester with a Palestinian flag self-immolated…outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta,” ending up in critical condition.¹ And that’s all we learn from Reuters about this protester.

No name. No age. No race. No gender. No nationality. No occupation. No message.

Reuters leaves us in the dark.

This is the image Reuters chose to go with that headline. It’s like they can’t help themselves.

But Reuters does let us know what the consul general of Israel to the southeastern U.S. had to say about the incident. "It is tragic,” said Anat Sultan-Dadon, “to see the hate and incitement toward Israel expressed in such a horrific way.” We don’t get to hear the actual hate and incitement being expressed toward Israel, just Anat Sultan-Dadon’s labeling of it. Reuters leaves this protester, who paid such a price, unnamed and unheard. But Anat Sultan-Dadon’s characterization of the protester’s message as incitement and hate, Reuters publishes.

Reuters are curs.

This is Anat Sultan-Dadon. She also told Reuters, “The sanctity of life is our highest value.” So, who wouldn’t want to be kept up to date with what she thinks about anything?

The Associated Press, too, leaves us in the dark about who this protester was and what their message was. Indeed, like Reuters, the Associated Press seems to be going out of its way to outright hide one important piece of information about the protester’s identity:

A protester was in critical condition Friday after setting themself on fire outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta, authorities said…

…and the gender-neutral pronoun is maintained throughout, but only for the protester. Pronouns for others in the story were standard gender-specific pronouns.

Local media reported that the protester was a woman.

Moreover, not only did the national media seem to suppress information about the protester’s gender, it seemed to suppress her name, as well, not to mention the story itself.

I could not discover this woman’s name. The papers reported this as if the authorities knew the woman’s identity but weren’t releasing it, for some reason, which appears to be highly unusual. She is the only “unknown” on Wikipedia’s list of Americans who have self-immolated below.

It appears three important details about this woman’s protest are being actively suppressed:

1. her name

2. her gender

3. her message.

I want to reach out to the woman, if appropriate. She deserves the same respect we are giving Aaron Bushnell.

Speaking of the Thank You, Aaron Bushnell campaign: almost everything has arrived for the yard signs to begin going out. (The street in front of the house where I live was the original Santa Fe Trail. A few blocks east of my place, there is an enormous old tree trunk, preserved, with a plaque denoting it as, at one time, the “mail tree.” When the wagon trains rolled past here, the settlers would leave notes tucked into crevices in the tree for those coming behind with tips and warnings—where there was fresh water, for example, or where there were Indians “on the warpath.” Remnants of that system persist, I guess, because sometimes it can take awhile for the mail to arrive.)

1. “Protester self-immolates outside Israeli consulate in Atlanta” (December 2, 2023)