Whereas the Olmert Government has failed to protect the citizens of Sderot from Arab missile attacks;
Whereas citizens of Sderot have had to leave their city—their homes and schools and work places;
Whereas appeals to the Olmert Government have failed to remedy the just grievances of these citizens;
Whereas demonstrations have failed to induce the Government to remedy these grievances;
Whereas the citizens of Sderot cannot obtain a redress of their grievances from the Judiciary;
Whereas no-confidence votes in the Knesset have failed to bring down the Olmert Government;
Whereas an election to change the Olmert Government is almost three years away;
Whereas the terrorists will meanwhile obtain more powerful missiles to attack other Israeli cities;
Therefore, the Olmert Government, having failed to secure the lives and property of its citizens, has lost its legitimacy and forfeited its right to remain in office. Indeed, its continuation in office, where it concocts plans to expel countless Jews from Judea and Samaria, renders it an utterly despotic Government.
The people of Israel thus have a natural and God-given right to alter or abolish this Government and would do so if animated by the spirit of the Americans who rallied to these truths of the American Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.—That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and provide new Guards for their future security.
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration, was slow to recognize elections (let alone civil disobedience) as a replacement for revolution, a point noted by the eminent political scientist Harry Jaffa, who cites the following Jeffersonian aphorisms:
- The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
- I hold that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and is necessary in the political world as storms are in the physical.
- The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always alive.
- And on Shay’s Rebellion: God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion….If [the people] remains quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public spirit.
Unfortunately, lethargy, the forerunner of death, permeates Israel. Lacking is the public spirit that animated the Americans of ‘76. The critics of Israel’s vicious government lack the moral courage and vision of men like Washington and Jefferson.
Still, let the eternal truths of the American Declaration of Independence be disseminated among Israel’s religious youth, on whom the survival of their country ultimately depends.
