Hamas’s Death Cult Comes to America

Aaron Bushnell’s self-immolation was an act of moral blackmail, and those who have lionized him want to see more such acts.

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People participate in a memorial during a vigil for U.S. airman Aaron Bushnell, who died after setting himself on fire in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington on February 25 in an act of protest against the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Washington, D.C., February 26, 2024.

Allison Bailey/Reuters

‘We love death like our enemies love life.” That chilling mantra, expressed a decade ago by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, has since become the terrorist outfit’s unofficial motto. “The Israelis are known to love life. We, on the other hand, sacrifice ourselves,” Hamas official Ali Baraka told a Russian interviewer less than a week after the October 7 massacre. “The thing any Palestinian desires the most is to be martyred for the sake of Allah.”

Neither Haniyeh nor Baraka, who respectively reside in Qatar and Lebanon, were speaking for themselves. Both are sufficiently removed from the war to which they’ve consigned Gaza’s people that they have little reason to anticipate their own glorious martyrdom. They are, however, happy to see their charges massacred in furtherance of the death cult Hamas has erected around itself. That cult extends well beyond the borders of the Gaza Strip, as the self-immolation of Aaron Bushnell sadly illustrates.

Noah Rothman

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.

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