On March 30, 1976, thousands of Palestinians marched in towns and villages across the Galilee region, in the north of present-day Israel, to protest Israel’s expropriation of vast tracts of Palestinian land. In coordination with the Israeli military, some 4,000 police officers were dispatched to brutally quell the one-day general strike. At the end of the day, six Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed by state security forces.
In Vancouver, Canada, on April 3, 1976, local Palestinians added their voices to the outcry over the killings and Israel’s policies of land confiscation (Check out this link). Since that time, Land Day has become a significant event for Palestinians as they commemorate not only their attachment to, and struggle for their homeland, but also to protest continuing Israeli ethnic cleansing against Palestinians.
As Ali Abunimah pointed out in an article on the Electronic Intifada:
“Day of the Land – or Land Day – marked a turning point as the first mass mobilization by Palestinians within Israel against internal colonialism and land theft. Its commemoration is a reaffirmation that the Palestinians who remained in the areas on which Israel was declared in 1948 are an inseparable part of the Palestinian people and their struggle.”
In recent years, Land Day has also been marked by global Days of Action on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions BDS. This year, Vancouver again joins in with Land Day activities by leafleting at a local university campus to highlight Air Canada’s role in supporting Israeli Apartheid and war crimes through its contracting with state owned Israel Aerospace Industries.
As the BDS Vancouver-Coast Salish campaign leaflet states –
“Air Canada recently signed a maintenance agreement for its B787 jets with Israel Aerospace Industries IAI, a military defense company wholly owned by the government of Israel. IAI is the subject of boycotts across Europe and is well-known for its drone technology and production. It is truly shameful that Air Canada is “outsourcing” its maintenance work to this Israeli defense company that is directly responsible for the deaths of Palestinian civilians.”
The campaign also started an on-line petition to Air Canada’s CEO, that set a target of 1000 signatures by Land Day, a target that was met and exceeded. And global support continues to increase as more groups and individuals are outraged by Air Canada’s open complicity with Israeli war crimes.
We call on all supporters of the Palestinian peoples’ struggle for liberation world-wide to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. The Western governments have proven over the last seven decades that they are the ones empowering Israeli war crimes; and we certainly can’t count on the Arab regimes, who rather than using their vast resources to challenge Israeli aggression, are busy trying to solidify their own dictatorships and suppress liberation movements across the Arab world.
Canada Palestine Association-Vancouver
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Details of Land Day Leafleting
** March 30: Palestinian Day of the Land **
Boycott Israeli Apartheid – Boycott Air Canada
Leafleting at Simon Fraser University
Burnaby Mountain campus
@ convocation hall near Bennett Library entrance
Monday, March 30
11:30 – 1:30pm