Land Day in Tel Aviv, 2006

For Land Day, March, 30, 2006, Zochrot set up an information booth in Rabin Square (outside the Tel Aviv Municipality) to reach the public with information about Land Day and its connection to the Nakba. About 100 people came by the booth during the day.

Here is the text of the flier that Zochrot distributed:

30/3/2006 Thirty Years Since Land Day
And Almost 60 Since the Nakba

"Land Day" is the day of the national uprising that broke out on March 30, 1976. On this day a general strike was declared and massive protests took place in Arab localities in , in protest against land expropriations and racist discrimination by the state of against its Arab and Palestinian citizens in the country. As in October 2000, the government responded to the protests with armed force. As a result six Arab protestors were killed, among them one woman. 49 were injured and 300 were arrested.

The direct reason for the events of Land Day was the expropriation of about 21,000 dunams of land in Arabeh, Sakhnin, Deir Hanna, Arab Al-Sawaad and others, with the purpose of allocating them to Jewish localities in the framework of the "Judaizing the Galilee" project. Land Day became the symbol of a struggle for full equality between citizens of the state.

Did you know?

  • That the state of expropriated more than a million dunams of land from Arab villages in the Galilee, the 'triangle,' the center of the country and the Negev , from 1948 to 1972?
  • That about 5,600,000 dunams that have been expropriated via the "Absentee Property" law (and other laws), are the property of the Palestinian refugees who were expelled in the Nakba of 1948?
  • That until 1948 Jews purchased only 7% of the lands on which the state of was founded, and that today the state holds 93% of the lands?
  • That since the founding of the state not one Arab locality has been constructed, except for the Bedouin localities who were constructed in order to concentrate the population on smaller parcels of land?
  • That tens of thousands of Bedouin Arab citizens live in unrecognized villages without infrastructure, water, electricity and basic services, with the purpose of forcing them to leave their lands?