Thirty six years ago, on March 30th 1976, demonstrations against the confiscation of Arab-Palestinians land by the Israeli government spread throughout the country, from the Galilee in the north to the Negev in the south. Six Arab-Palestinians were killed, over a hundred wounded, and hundreds more arrested. Land day was one of the first large mobilizations of Arab-Palestinians in Israel.
In 1976, the government of Israel declared its intention to expropriate lands in the Galilee, affecting some 20,000 dunams of land between the Arab villages of Sakhnin and Arabeh, of which 6,300 dunams was Arab-owned. On March 11, 1976, the government published the expropriation plan.
The government decision to confiscate the land was accompanied by the declaration of a curfew to be imposed on the villages of Sakhnin, Arabeh, Deir Hanna, Tu’ran, Tamra and Kabul, effective from 5 p.m. on March 29, 1976. Local Arab leaders, according a Communist Party Central Committee decision, responded by calling for a day of general strike and massive protests against the confiscation of lands to be held on March 30. The mayor of Nazareth, Tawfiq Ziad, was among the communist local Arab leaders, who carried out the decision. The government declared all demonstrations illegal and threatened to fire “agitators”, such as schoolteachers who encouraged their students to participate, from their jobs. The threats were not effective, however, and many teachers led their pupils out of the classrooms to join the general strike and marches that took place throughout the Arab towns in Israel. Solidarity strikes were also held almost simultaneously in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and in most of the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
Communist leader Tawfiq Ziad in a demonstration prior the Land Day, March 1976 (Photo: Al Ittihad)
Today, Friday, the Palestinian-Arab minority in Israel will mark Land Day beginning with a wreath-laying ceremony at a monument in the Galilee town of Sakhnin to the six people killed in clashes on the first Land Day in 1976. The Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, said expropriations of land continue, that “the struggle this year will be an uncompromising one of life and death,” and that the government must abandon the so-called Prawer plan involving the removal of Bedouin from land in the Negev. After the wreath-laying ceremony in Sakhnin local marches will be held through Sakhnin, Arabeh and Kafr Cana.
A central message of today’s Land Day rallies will be a call for the expansion of the municipal boundaries of Arab communities and approval of master plans to alleviate a severe housing shortage.
The main processions through Sakhnin, Arabeh and Deir Hanna will take place within the communities and on the roads linking them. As has become the practice in recent years, police deploy outside the towns and there is practically no police presence in the towns during the events. Another massive demonstration will be held in the Negev.
