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On the 30th of March, we shall commemorate the 32nd Land Day. Land Day began as a general strike in 1976 to protest against Israel’s policy of confiscating Arab land, and ended with the shooting to death of six Palestinians from Sakhnin and Arrabeh by the Israeli security forces. Israel’s policy of land dispossession, which continues to today, is a clear symbol of the nature of the regime. Over 70,000 Arab Bedouin live in the Naqab (Negev) in villages that are not recognized by the State, and are therefore denied any infrastructure; while these people have been living on their land since prior to 1948, Israel is attempting to use the law to portray these original inhabitants of the land to the world as trespassers. Israel is also refusing to allow 250,000 Arab citizens living inside the Green Line who were expelled from their villages during the Nakba to return to their homes and land, and at the same time is building new towns in the Galilee from which they are prevented from living by imposing impossible conditions and ‘selection committees’ to exclude them. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel is continuing to construct the racist separation wall, severing villagers from their agricultural land, to appropriate land to build “Apartheid” roads (such as the Ring Road) exclusively for Jewish use, and to build yet more settlements on Arab land. Israel is also selling the land of Palestinian refugees that it terms “absentee property” to third parties, in total disdain of international and Israeli law. This colonial regime has now been in existence for over 60 years, on the basis of a Zionist ideology to control the “Land of Israel”. Therefore, any democratic agenda must strive to topple this colonial project, in order to create a democratic regime for all. The Apartheid regime was overthrown in South Africa, despite all its strength and unyieldingness, as such regimes have no place in this century.
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Adalah’s Newsletter is a monthly publication issued in Arabic, Hebrew and English. It highlights Adalah’s main activities, provides analysis of human rights issues, and links to new reports. Suggestions, articles and commentaries from our readers are welcome. 
