Quiet reigns as thousands of Israeli Arabs mark Land Day

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I noticed in the deluge of new articles posted from Ha'aretz that this is one of the few from today's edition that hasn't yet been posted, so seeing as how it's pretty important, here it is..

Thousands of Israeli Arab citizens on Thursday marked Land Day, an annual day in protest of the expropriation of Arab-owned lands. The main protest took place in Lod, where thousands of demonstrators marched from the city's biggest mosque to city hall.

There were brief street clashes between police and Palestinian youths throwing stones in East Jerusalem but no other disturbances were reported around the country.

Among the speakers was Shuweiki Hatib, chairman of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, who told his audience, "We are staying here and this is our land... We will decide our fate, not them."

Land Day, commemorated since 1976 when six Arabs were killed by police in Sakhnin while protesting land expropriation, took place this year in the shadow of Tuesday's Knesset elections. All of the Arab Knesset MKs, incoming and outgoing, were present at the rally, but did not speak because of time constraints.

Archbishop Atallah Hana of the Orthodox Church said in his speech that Christian Arabs stand by Israeli Muslims in their struggle against discrimination, declaring, "We are all one people."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/700772.html

[xchrom]

1. ...

cool.

glad to see so many turn out for that event.