Land Day, commemorating the 1976 shooting to death of six Palestinians, marks an important date in the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation.
When in 1976, Israeli occupying forces expropriated 21 thousand acres of Palestinian land in the Galilee, Palestinians across historic Palestine protested against this theft and the general settler-colonial policies of erasure undertaken by Israel in efforts to Judaize the area.
To protest the expropriation orders and general policies, the National Committee for the Defense of Arab Lands declared a general strike on March 30, 1976. In response, the Israeli occupying forces violently confronted protestors and left behind six Palestinians killed, tens wounded, and hundreds arrested.
Birzeit University has always marked such significant national occasions. In 1984, for example, it planted trees on the new campus to commemorate this day. The late Gabi Baramki, the acting president of the university at the time, was approached by the Israeli military governor, who asked whether the university had obtained a permit to plant trees. Baramki asserted this to be true when, in fact, he said, it had never even occurred to him that a permit had to be obtained to plant trees on one’s property. The students, staff, and faculty continued with planting, and students were so determined to join the effort that they braved checkpoints and used back roads when they found that the Israeli army had closed the main roads (see The Story of a National Institution, p. 58).
Until today, Land Day resonates with Palestinians everywhere because, beyond marking a historical event, it draws attention to Israel’s ongoing violent, settler-colonial process of erasure. This year, the forty-fourth anniversary of Land Day will be celebrated with solemn ceremonies amid the COVID-19 pandemic that is leaving most of the world’s population under lockdown and curfew.
As students and faculty members are being confined to their homes, the university continues its annual tradition online and through social media platforms.
Like all Palestinians, the Birzeit University community commemorates Land Day to protest the ongoing Israeli land theft and the occupying agents’ continuous attempts to erase the Palestinian identity, culture, and existence on their land.
