Three 20-year-old Palestinian college students (two of them American citizens)—Hisham Awartani of Brown University, Ali Ahmad of Trinity College, and Kinnan Abdalhamid of Haverford College—were shot and wounded last Saturday, allegedly by Jason J. Eaton, 48, who was arrested Sunday and arraigned on three counts of second-degree attempted murder.
It happened over Thanksgiving weekend in Burlington, Vermont, a progressive college town in a state that counts democratic socialist Bernie Sanders as one of its senators.
Though no motive has yet been established, state’s attorney Sarah Hair George, said during a briefing on Monday, “I do want to be clear that there is no question that this was a hateful act.”
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Two of the students were wearing the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, which made them potential targets, according to Abed Ayoub, the attorney for the victims’ families. Although Eaton has pleaded not guilty, he allegedly told the arresting officers he was waiting for them at his apartment—where a .38-caliber handgun and loaded magazine with rounds that matched those found at the shooting were discovered.
In a tragic, ironic twist of fate, one of the students’ family members told reporters they thought he’d be safer in the U.S. after studying in the West Bank, where Palestinians are enduring a violent occupation and apartheid conditions, according to Amnesty International.
The three students, all of whom were born in the West Bank, were able to escape an occupation only to end up being shot in a country where guns are more valued than children.
First responders treat a victim after a gunman shot and wounded three college students of Palestinian descent in Burlington, Vermont.
Wayne Savage / via ReutersUnfortunately, that family member might not have understood they were sending their boy to the only country on Earth that has more civilian-owned firearms than people. According to a 2022 report, the U.S. has 120.5 firearms per 100 residents. With those alarming statistics, it should come as no surprise that guns have emerged as the leading cause of death for children in America, with rates doubling in the past 10 years. There have been nearly 600 mass shootings in 2023 alone, which includes 77 school shootings. Vermont has experienced more than 20 homicides this year almost matching last year’s 25 homicides, which were the most in the state over nearly three decades.
Again, we do not know what motivated the shooter, just as we don’t know the legality of the weapon used. We do know that he chose to walk out his door, during an otherwise peaceful holiday weekend, and try to kill people. And we know that in one of the progressive areas of one of the most liberal states in the U.S., the alleged shooter was armed to the teeth.
Eaton’s mother described him as a “very religious person” who has struggled with mental health in the past. She said her son thought “the world was a mess” but didn’t mention any opinions about the current war between Israel and Hamas. On his X account, Eaton described himself as a “radical citizen” who patrols “demockracy and crapitalism for oathcreepers.” His background banner read, “Libertarians want trans furrys [sic] to be able to protect their cannabis farms with unregistered machine guns.”
The young men who were shot, allegedly by Eaton, are brown-skinned and Palestinian, a group that has historically been maligned, erased, and demonized by U.S. corporate media.
Since the failed War on Terror, Islamophobia has become even further mainstreamed, in part thanks to a right-wing ecosystem that includes conservative media and Donald Trump, the likely GOP presidential candidate who has always been committed to fanning the anti-Muslim hate. After Hamas’ attack on Israel, Trump vowed to bar refugees from Gaza if re-elected and promised an “ideological screening” for all immigrants who sympathize with “radical Islamic extremists” and have “jihadist sympathies.”
Not to be outdone, Jesse Watters, the less talented demagogue who took over Tucker Carlson’s white power hour on Fox News, used his show in late October to declare that he’s “had it” with Muslims and Arabs and warned that “someone is going to get punched in the face.” Last month, a 71-year-old white landlord, who was allegedly radicalized by conservative media, took it a step further by stabbing six-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al-Fayoume to death in Illinois.
Did any of this have an effect on the shooter? At this point we don’t know, and it’s possible we’ll never know.
But when a country refuses to enforce sensible gun control after repeatedly witnessing its children being massacred, then it’s fair to conclude that when some people snap in America—for whatever reason—they’ll be well-equipped to kill people quickly.
For these three young men born in the occupied Palestinian territories—a perennially dangerous place where Israeli settlers commit wanton violence against Palestinians and IDF soldiers control civilians’ ability to travel in their own land—to face a would-be killer in a bucolic New England college town is a uniquely American tragedy.
I hope that the story of these three students, who are lucky to be alive, can also reveal the human cost of our ignorance and indifference. Maybe it can inspire some reflection and righteous condemnation that leads to policy changes—at least until the next shooting.
