Monday, July 08, 2019
Elder of Ziyon
“Any man's death
diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to
know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”
While the final words of John Donne’s seventeenth-century poem
are more well-known than the first, the
complete quote captures my response to news of the suicide death of Simone
Burns, the Irish anti-Israel activist who was caught on video in 2018
screaming racial taunts at the crew of an Air India flight that refused to
serve her more alcohol.
While I made a brief comment about the incident in this piece about BDSers
behaving badly, that was the extent of the time-of-day dedicated to the
story (although I will admit she popped into my head whenever I contemplated what
boycotters would sound like if they generally let their masks slip).
Apparently Burns was arrested after her tirade and sentenced
to six months in prison. During her time
behind bars, the video of her crazy behavior went viral, turning her into a
punchline for strangers, an embarrassment to allies, and a stand-in for everything
wrong with those who pretend their anti-Israel animus is actually a crusade for
human rights.
Since the soul of other living beings is ultimately
inaccessible to outsiders, there is no telling if Burns took her life out of
guilt over her misbehavior, embarrassment at having her bigotry communicated across
the planet, abandonment of former friends and allies, hate-Tweets from
ideological enemies, pain from long-term skin cancer treatments, depression,
alcoholism or (most likely) some combination of the above.
In retrospect, what came off originally as the BDS mindset
taken to its logical extreme now seems like the ravings of a staggeringly lost
soul, someone who – like all of us – desperately wanted her life to mean
something. The fact that she found that
meaning in the objectification and negation of a people, then found a community
ready to celebrate her “bravery” in doing so, are two early steps that likely
led to her final fate.
Burns’ fervency in promoting the anti-Israel cause can be
seen in the energy she devoted to it professionally, as well as her demands
that complete strangers on an airplane give her the respect she clearly felt
she deserved. Yes, alcohol (and likely
other factors) contributed to her Air India breakdown which ultimately led to
her demise, but I wonder if all of this tragedy could have been avoided had she
not fallen into a community built on turning an entire people (Israelis –
although just the Jewish ones) into the kind of one-dimensional caricatures
that Burns saw herself become on social media.
As far as I can tell, Burns became a non-person among “friends”
after that Air India video became a global phenomenon, although it sounds like
there has been some effort to blame
critics (especially the more irrational and threatening among them) for
tormenting her into the grave.
Personally, this rational critic feels more sadness and
regret than contempt (much less joy) over the news that a political opponent
chose to end her life. Perhaps this is a
sign of weakness, although the disastrous track record of those who celebrate
the demise of opponents (as well as recruit the mentally disturbed to their
cause) gives practical value to the moral choice of not treating anyone (even
someone who hates you) as a thing.
