Land Day
LAND DAY
strike by palestinians to protest confiscation of arab land in israel (30 march 1976).
After Israel's government announced plans to confiscate Arab land in February 1976, the National Committee for the Defense of Arab Lands, the first political organization claiming to represent the entire Palestinian population of Israel, called for a strike and named it Land Day. In the Galilee region, where the appropriations were to take place, villagers clashed with Israel's troops, leading to six Arab deaths, and numerous arrests and injuries. These incidents were similar to demonstrations at Kafr Qasim twenty years before.
The strike demonstrated the political strength of Rakah, the Communist party of Israel, which had organized the demonstrations and had created the committee. Land Day was declared a Palestinian national holiday in 1992 and is celebrated annually with demonstrations and a general strike by Palestinians residing in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.
see also kafr qasim.
Bibliography
Kimmerling, Baruch, and Migdal, Joel S. Palestinians: The Making of a People. New York: Free Press, 1993.
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