Land Day

Land Day (Arabic: يوم الأرض‎, Yom al-Ard; Hebrew: יוֹם הַאֲדָמָה, Yom HaAdama), March 30, is an annual day of commemoration for Palestinians of the events of that date in 1976. In response to the Israeli government's announcement of a plan to expropriate thousands of dunams of land for "security and settlement purposes", a general strike and marches were organized in Arab towns from the Galilee to the Negev. In the ensuing confrontations with the Israeli army and police, six Arab citizens were killed, about one hundred were wounded, and hundreds of others arrested.

Scholarship on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict recognizes Land Day as a pivotal event in the struggle over land and in the relationship of Arab citizens to the Israeli state and body politic. It is significant in that it was the first time since 1948 that Arabs in Israel organized a response to Israeli policies as a Palestinian national collective. An important annual day of commemoration in the Palestinian national political calendar ever since, it is marked not only by Arab citizens of Israel, but also by Palestinians all over the world.

Read more about Land Day:  Background, Impact, Studies of Israeli Media Coverage, Legacy

Famous quotes containing the words land and/or day:

    Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.
    Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 5:15.

    See Exodus 22:8 for a different version of this fourth commandment.

    You must not eat with it anything leavened. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it -the bread of affliction -because you came out of the land of Egypt in great haste, so that all the days of your life you may remember the day of your departure from the land of Egypt.
    Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 16:3.