The first Land Day, in 1976, was marked by riots that erupted when Israeli authorities expropriated land from several Arab communities in the Galilee to build roads and other national projects. People were killed in the violence that erupted that day, and the anniversary has been marked every year, usually by quiet demonstrations and general strikes. This year was no different.
Arab MK Azmi Bishara, who ran for Prime Minister in 1999, was interviewed on Israel Radio today, and put Land Day into wonderful context. Why should the Arabs not react, he asked, when the State of Israel continues to expropriate land for national projects, and continues to refuse to provide services for unrecognized Arab communities in the south?
These communities are made up largely of Beduin or nomadic clans, have never approached the Israeli government for recognition, and occasionally get in the way of infrastructure projects, or military exercise areas, causing a danger to themselves and their flocks.
Bishara continued to rail against the government for not paying enough attention to the Arab communities, and for the continued feeling that the Arabs are second class citizens.
On the surface, there is nothing wrong with Bishara's claim, or with the Arab demonstrations. As long as they remain peaceful, they have the right to demonstrate in our democracy.
But like all other issues, this goes deeper than just the surface. Most issues that the Arab-Israeli leadership latches onto are cast such that the Arabs are considered less worthy, while the government would never treat Jews the same way. Land Day has become an annual rallying cry for Israeli Arabs to show the world how unfair and unjust are their lives under Jewish sovereignty.
But it is all a myth. Israeli Arabs are represented in every area of Israeli life. There are Israeli Arab doctors in all fields at all Israeli hospitals. There are Israeli Arab lawyers, accountants, judges, including on the Supreme Court, engineers. They are in every field from hi-tech to agriculture, from construction to civil service. There are even Israeli Arab police officers, and even a few soldiers in the IDF.
And there are Jews in Israel who live below the poverty line, who are chronically unemployed, who live in tenement housing or on the street, who don't have running water or electricity, whose local authorities haven't paid their employees in eight months in some cases, whose communities are economically, socially and academically depressed.
Perhaps the proportions don't equal the proportions of each group in the population, but I have never seen an open society where there was a prescribed number of poor people, or of rich people. In a democracy, opportunity is what you make for yourself. The Arabs have no more right to demand opportunity than anyone else, and must work for it like everyone else.
Many of them realize this. Their political leadership does not. If there is a single Arab who is economically disadvantaged, whose land is expropriated, whose home is not given the proper building permits, people like Azmi Bishara are quick to claim oppression and prejudice.
But when a Jew's community is not given the proper permits, when a Jew's land is expropriated, when whole communities are threatened with destruction due to blatant political motives, Azmi Bishara and his followers shout with glee. One need only listen to the statements being made in Israel regarding Ariel Sharon's intention to evacuate all the Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip, or those made every time the government razes an outpost in Judea and Samaria.
If the Israeli-Arabs need to celebrate Land Day, they should at least do so without all the hypocrisy. Let them complain when Jewish homes are threatened the same way they do when it comes to Arab land, and perhaps the rest of the country will move to help them rather than treat them as just another annoyance.
Copyright 2004. All rights reserved. Yehuda Poch is a journalist living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission of the author only.
