A U.S. Special Forces combat veteran spoke out during the public comment period of a recent Texas city council meeting, condemning Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza and United States support for the slaughter.
"My name is Alan Shebaro," the 47-year-old 3rd Special Forces Group veteran—who fought during the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq—said during the February 20 meeting in McKinney, Texas, north of Dallas.
"I know war," he continued. "What is going on in Palestine right now is not a war. It is the dehumanization, it's the genocide, it's the ethnic cleansing of a specific people to take their land. This is wrong, and there's nothing more American than speaking out against what's wrong."
Shebaro served 15 years in the U.S. military. Today, he is a 5th-degree jiu-jitsu black belt who owns the Combat Base Texas-Shabaro Jiu-Jitsu academy, which is also the headquarters of the We Defy Foundation, a group co-founded by Shebaro that's dedicated to preventing veteran suicides. An average of 16 U.S. veterans kill themselves daily.
On Sunday, Aaron Bushnell, an active-duty U.S. airman, fatally self-immolated outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., declaring, "I will no longer be complicit in genocide." His last words were, "Free Palestine!"
TVNL Comment: Please watch Alan Shebaro's speech that is embedded in this article.