Land Day

by Mazim Qumsiyeh, January, 2011

From Qumsiyeh's 2011 book "Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment"

Away from politics, grassroots efforts were functioning. The increased mobilization among Palestinians inside the Green Line took a dramatic and bold step forward with a large meeting in August 1975 in Nazareth attended by 110 individuals to defend the land. At this meeting, a committee was selected, headed by Anees Kardoush, to prepare for an even larger meeting.

This meeting, held in October 1975, included about 5,000 activists from many factions and created the Committee for Defense of the Land (Lajnat Al-Difa’ ’An Al-Aradi) with 100 members and an eleven-member secretariat. It began by protesting against the confiscation of 22,000 dunums in the Galilee and the declaration of an even larger parcel of land belonging to three villages (in the Al-Mil area) as closed military zones, with the intention of building nine Jewish settlements in this closed zone. A meeting was held in Nazareth on March 6, 1976. This included 48 heads of municipalities and local village councils and called for a day of protests and strikes on March 30, 1976 should Israel go ahead with its land confiscation policies. When it appeared the strike would take place, many areas outside of the Galilee joined it, including in the West Bank.11

This became known as ‘Land Day’ throughout Palestine. The events actually started on March 29, when a demonstration against the Israeli army’s provocative mobilizations in the village of Deir Hanna. Later that evening, the village of Araba Al-Batoof demonstrated in solidarity and a young man, Khair Muhammad Yassin, was killed by Israeli soldiers. He was the first martyr of the 1976 Land Day. More martyrs fell over the next 24 hours. The events were well organized and participation was high. The Israeli authorities reacted violently. Many were injured, six nonviolent protesters killed and hundreds arrested.

The events coincided with the secret Koening Memorandum which laid out plans for further discrimination and ethnic cleansing to ‘make the Galilee more Jewish’. The Israeli government condemned the leaking of the memorandum, but no government official repudiated its racist content.12 After this successful popular event, differences arose that weakened the organizing committee and yet, the movement continues strongly to this day.13