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On March 30th, 1976, the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, under the umbrella of the "Committee for the Defense of Arab Lands" called for a general strike of all the Arab population in Israel to protest against a new wave of confiscation of Arab lands in Israel, within the framework of the overtly racist plan to "Judaize the Galilee". Before dawn, heavy police and borderguards forces invested Arab villages in Israel, imposing a general curfew and preventing the circulation of Arab citizens. In the attempt to crush the demonstrations that ensued, Israeli forces shot and killed 6 Palestinians. On the same day, strikes and demonstrations took place all over the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, as well as among Palestinian political prisoners and freedom fighters inside Israeli jails. Since then, Land Day has become a yearly demonstration of the unity of the Palestinian people, and of the centrality of the issue of Land in the Palestinian question. This year, the demonstrations that took place, both inside Israel and in the occupied territory of the State of Palestine, reflected both the level of frustration and anger among the people and the persistent readiness of the Israeli security establishment to deal with Israel’s own Arab citizens with a brutality they would not dream of enforcing against Jewish protesters. This year again, the Day of the Land was an occasion to verify that the State of Israel is still not, as its Arab citizens publicly demand, “the State of all its citizens”. The difficulties encountered by the present Israeli minister of Education, Yossi Sarid, in his attempts to make room for the reality of Israel’s Arab citizens in the Israeli education system, are a graphic illustration of the persistence of this apartheid philosophy, which lies at the very root of the Palestinian tragedy, and of the difficulty for Israeli society, and certainly for Israeli decision-makers, to move away from the logic of war into the culture of Peace. For this is directly related to the present difficulties of the Peace-Process. A series of intensive Palestinian-Israeli talks on final status has just been concluded in the US without any significant result or breakthrough. In spite of repeated assurances that the ambitious deadlines set - May for a Framework agreement, and September for a full Treaty - will be respected, there is no sign yet of any new flexibility on the part of the Israeli side on any one of the key issues on the agenda: the Israeli negotiators keep on demanding the annexation of Palestinian territory, keep on demanding to maintain most Israeli settlements, keep on denying the Palestinian refugees right of Return, continue to proclaim that the illegal annexation of Arab Jerusalem is irreversible and not negotiable, and keep on rejecting the principles of international law and the terms of reference of the peace-process as a whole. In the meantime the remaining parts of the interim agreement are still waiting for implementation, and a frantic settlement colonization drive continues, with its cortege of land confiscation and house demolitions. The Palestinian leadership has taken a solemn oath before the Palestinian people: whether there is a Palestinian-Israeli framework agreement on final status or not, whether there is a final-status agreement or not, we will proclaim statehood and materialize our sovereignty on our land before the end of this year. The world knows it, and the Israeli government knows it too. And it is as a state that we shall continue to struggle and negotiate in order to restore our full sovereignty on all the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, in conformity with international law and the terms of reference of the Peace process since the 1991 Madrid Conference. For it must be clear that none of the Israeli procrastinating and delaying tactics can affect our commitment to peace as a strategic option. The establishment of the independent state of Palestine, which will once and for all do away with the illusion that there could be peace, or even stability, in our area without such a state will be a decisive factor in our progress towards the just and lasting peace to which the peoples of our region, and the international community at large, aspire. 1.4.2000
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The Editor |
