With the arrival of the one year anniversary of the Hamas terror attacks on October 7, many people have been striving to find their own way to mark the somber event. Israel has struck back hard and to great effect, inflicting serious damage on its enemies and clearing out enemy fighters, but there is little to celebrate. More than 100 hostages remain missing or unaccounted for and the Israelis are still trying to account for all who were lost. Some public demonstrations of grief have not taken on the expected tone, however. There are some who are seeking to lionize the actions of Hamas and cast the blame upon Israel. This includes one person who ostensibly works in the legacy media. A supposed photojournalist chose to set himself on fire outside the White House this weekend to show his support for Hamas. But even that dramatic display appeared to fall short of the mark. (NY Post)

A protester who works in the media lit himself on fire outside of the White House during an anti-Israel protest on Saturday evening, disturbing video shows.

The man, identified as photojournalist Samuel Mena Jr,  can be seen screaming in pain after he set his left arm ablaze in the middle of the street as shocked police officers and bystanders rush over to help, according to one clip.

Mena holds his left arm — engulfed in flames — high in the air to show others as several people quickly douse him with water and beat out the flames with pieces of clothing.

Samuel Mena Jr, clearly intended to make a splash in the press by committing an act of self-immolation within sight of the White House to demonstrate his solidarity with the killers of Hamas. But his efforts were certainly less than impressive. Before breaking this down, let's take a look at the video of the event captured by another attendee. 

A self immolation attempt at the Washington DC anti Israel protest.
متظاهر يحاول إحراق نفسه في العاصمة واشنطن في مظاهرة ضد العدوان الاسرائيلي pic.twitter.com/zlrs1Booyt

— Tarek Abou Ghazala (@tarekmd) October 5, 2024

As far as acts of self-immolation go, this one seems half-hearted at best. You will see that Mena manages to set one of his arms aflame before waving it around, playing up the event for the cameras. I'm sure that it was painful later on (serious burns are never fun), but this was a far cry from some of the true acts of self-immolations we've seen from others in the past. He quickly allows the flames to be extinguished. He complains that he is a journalist while onlookers douse him with water, sparing him any significant damage from the flames. But he's obviously not acting in his role as a journalist during this event. He has made himself part of the story. 

And what precisely was it that Mena was either celebrating or protesting? That's never really made clear beyond his support for Hamas and his lack of empathy for the many Jews who were abducted, raped, and even murdered by the Hamas terrorists. If someone really wanted to "help" Mena, they could have come by with a fuel can and said that they noticed he was low on gasoline and were willing to donate some of their own to the "cause." I would be willing to wager that Mena would have scurried away from that person while screaming about being attacked.

This was a disgraceful display from beginning to end. This open support for the terrorists of Hamas has left many of us puzzled, but there have been few issues of our time that represent such a clear, unambiguous line between good and evil. How so many people are knowingly coming down on the side of evil, particularly on our college campuses is frustrating beyond belief.