Police don’t expect anything out of the ordinary for this year’s Land Day on
Wednesday, saying that the normal security procedures taken each year have not
been changed.
Israel Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said that
“standard police security measures will be implemented as they were in previous
years."
Each police command will make assessments based on their needs,
with an emphasis on the northern district and the Jerusalem
district.”
Rosenfeld said that, in spite of the recent popular uprisings
throughout the Arab world, police are not expecting out of the ordinary,
unusually large demonstrations this year.
Land Day has been a day of
protests and general strikes in the Arab sector for more than 30 years, and is
held to mark the anniversary of the 1976 killing of six Galilee Arabs in clashes
over land confiscations.
In recent years, the day has been overshadowed
by annual commemorations of the October 2000 riots, in which 13 Israeli Arabs
were killed in clashes with the army and police.
This year’s protests
will include a march in Lod from the site of the demolished Abu-Eid family homes
to the local municipality on Tuesday, followed by protests in the northern
village of Arrabe and in the unrecognized and repeatedly demolished Beduin
village of al-Araqib in the Negev on Wednesday. On Friday, protesters plan to
mark Land Day with a demonstration in Jaffa.
Nadim Nashif, director of
Baladna, the Association for Arab Youth, said that this year’s Land Day, as in
every year, will include a general strike in the Arab sector.
However,
since it is in the middle of the work week, it may be a bit harder to get people
to take part.
Nashif said he didn’t feel that the recent revolutions in
the Arab world would have a big impact on the Land Day demonstrations, saying
“demonstrations and protests were always a big part of the protest here. It
wasn’t like the other states in the area, where protests were kept down always
and [were] always contained, and then suddenly it all explodes at once.”