Israel Matzav

Last one out of the Negev, please turn out the lights

Shurat HaDin, the Israel Law Center, has filed suit on behalf of fifty residents of Sderot who are seeking to be exempted from paying income taxes on the grounds that the government is not protecting them from 'Palestinian' rocket attacks. If this succeeds, I wonder how many more Israelis will be able to sue. Let's start with all the residents of the north who were abandoned this past summer, and the residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza who were abandoned years ago....

This is from the Law Center's press release courtesy of IMRA.

Fifty residents of the Southern Israeli city of Sderot have petitioned the District Court this morning to declare them exempt from paying taxes in light of the State's refusal to provide adequate military protection to their community. The plaintiffs claim that the Government's policy of restraint against the on-going Palestinian rocket attacks has endangered their families' lives and encouraged the terrorist organizations to escalate their attacks. They are demanding that that until Sderot is given the same level of military protection provided by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to all other cities in the Jewish State that they not be obligated to pay taxes to the Israeli government. [They've hit the nail on the head here: rocket attacks like this on Tel Aviv would never be tolerated. But as I have told you many times before, Sderot is NotInMyBackYard. CiJ]

In addition, the Sderot residents are requesting that they receive a tax refund for all the amounts paid to the State since June 2004, which is the month that the deadly Palestinian missiles claimed the first civilian life in Sderot. As the plaintiffs' court papers state: "From this date the State of Israel was on notice that the Qassam
rockets began to seriously endanger the lives of the Sderot residents and nevertheless refused to provide the appropriate military response to the terrorists." The law suit draws a connection between the historic obligation of a citizen to pay taxes to the government and the duty of the State to militarily defend the lives of the taxpaying citizen from foreign aggressors. According to the plaintiffs, this
social contract, which is the basis of any political framework, imposes civic obligations on the citizens of the state in exchange for the government acting to protect their natural rights including their physical safety. Citizens, they claim, only are obligated to pay taxes when and if the government is under a similar duty to defend them. The State of Israel has breached its duty to employ the IDF to defend the residents of Sderot from the Palestinians.

The Sderot residents are represented in the petition by Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center Director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner.

According to attorney Darshan-Leitner: "The Government's immoral decision to neglect the safety and rights of the residents of Sderot and it surrounding communities to further its diplomatic relations with the United States and Europe must be opposed. The State's first obligation must be to safeguard its citizens and to utilize all its military might to destroy the terrorists firing rockets from Gaza. The State cannot impose tax obligations on the residents of the Negev even as it abandons them to the Palestinian terrorists' attacks. We are asking the District Court to declare that the residents in the Negev areas under continuous Qassam attacks, who the State has told to `fend for themselves,' are no longer obligated to pay any taxes to the State of Israel. If the IDF won't fight, Sderot residents aren't going to pay."

But it's not just the residents of Sderot who have had it with the government. Arutz Sheva is reporting that the Shaar HaNegev regional council, the local governing authority for the western Negev area, is making plans for mass evacuation if Kassams start raining down on them:

Meanwhile, the head of the Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council is making other plans. Alon Shuster said Monday that military officials are expecting a massive escalation in Kassam rocket attacks on the Negev.

Communities in the area have begun to make plans to leave, based on the reports that have reached the leadership. Shuster said the Council is making preparations for a mass evacuation of the region’s residents.

“We have no choice but to protect our lives without waiting for government instructions,” he said.

There are two points here that need emphasizing. First, the reaction of 'ordinary Israelis' (i.e. non-revenants) to the constant rain of Kassams, should give us a greater appreciation of the courage of the Jews who were expelled from Gaza after putting up with 'Palestinian' rocket fire for years. It did not even make the news here when Kassams, RPG's, etc. were fired at Jewish towns in Gaza between 2000 and 2005, but thousands of rockets were fired, and in the end the revenants (now refugees) had to be evacuated expelled by force.

Second, the lesson that the government still has not learned from its cowardly flight from Gaza is that all we do by leaving territory to the 'Palestinians' is move the front lines a bit closer to MyBackYard. If the Shaar HaNegev residents leave, look for the 'Palestinians' to claim the area, look for the 'Palestinians' to station rocket launchers there (with 'civilians' to act as their protectors human shields, and look for the area outside of MyBackYard to get a little bit smaller.

When will Israel start to fight back? When we are all angry enough to take to the streets and bring down the Olmert-Peretz-Livni government. As long as Olmert, Peretz and Livni are in power, they will continue to fiddle and Israel will continue to burn until nothing is left but greater Tel Aviv MyBackYard, and by then, God forbid, it will be too late to save anything.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:43 AM