Not Quite the Boston Tea Party, But…

The Boston Tea Party

International influence
The Boston Tea Party is known around the world and has been inspirational to other rebels. For example, Erik H. Erikson records in his book "Gandhi's Truths" that when Mahatma Gandhi met with the British viceroy in 1930 after the Indian salt protest campaign, Gandhi took some duty-free salt from his shawl and said, with a smile, that the salt was "to remind us of the famous Boston Tea Party."

Yesterday’s news, quoted by Batya below, of Sderot suing for security, has potentially broad implications for the future of the State of Israel and Israeli society. Yes, as she writes, “Jews all over the world were once supremely proud of the IDF, Israel Defense Forces. Unfortunately things have changed…,” but I see this as having tremendous potential, if you’ll but read on.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner

Darshan-Leitner [of the Israeli Law Center, Shurat HaDin] said bluntly, "If the IDF won’t fight, Sderot residents aren’t going to pay."

This is the essence of what the Boston Tea Party set out to do. Those of us who remember our American history [and if not, check out the Wikipedia link] recall that the Boston Tea Party was all about “taxation without representation.”

Now while it’s true that this protest was in the form of a District Court petition filed by 50 Sderot residents on Monday [which] challenged the government’s right to levy taxes on a population it has not effectively defended against rocket attacks, and certainly lacks the defiance demonstrated by the Americans in 1773, it’s certainly something that is relatively new in Israel of 2007. [Hey, we’re only 234 years behind the times!]

And this action: The court brief filed on behalf of the city’s residents by attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner also requested a tax refund retroactive to June 2004, the month in which the first civilian was killed by a Kassam rocket attack on Sderot. "From this date the State of Israel was on notice that the Kassam rockets began to seriously endanger the lives of the Sderot residents, and nevertheless refused to provide the appropriate military response to the terrorists," the brief stated
is certainly an indication of an added Israeli element – good ole chutzpa, or what Chassidim would call ‘azut d’kedusha’ [holy brazenness].

And finally, while we have absolutely no faith in Israel’s corrupt, biased legal system, we can wish Nitsana Darshan-Leitner the best of success, and thank the people of Sderot for [perhaps] starting the Revolution!!!