Land Day (1989)

Today's Golden Oldie is from March 30, 1989

The folks at the international movement to destroy the Jewish State have been really active during the month of March 2009, beginning with Israeli Apartheid Week and planning to reach a crescendo of defamation and hysteria on March 30.

Usually marketed as Palestinian "Land Day", this year it will be promoted as Global Day of Action "against the Israeli apartheid regime". So what, exactly, does "Land Day" commemorate?

"On March 11, 1976, the Israeli government published a plan to expropriate approximately 21,000 dunams (5,250 acres) of land in the Galilee. Only 31 percent of the land in question, or less than one-third, was Arab-owned, some of which was to be used to expand the Arab village of Majar near Acre and to build public buildings in Arab towns. This action by Israel was no different than the eminent domain process that is regularly used in the United States or other countries to acquire land for public projects.

Nevertheless, the most prominent political party in the Arab sector at the time, Rakah (The New Communist List), cynically decided to seize upon the decision and called a general strike for March 30.

Riots broke out the night before - in which soldiers and police were attacked with stones and firebombs - and continued the following day, resulting in the deaths of six Israeli Arabs. Though the media portrays Land Day as a day when Israeli Arabs peacefully vented their frustrations, Land Day was in fact born in violence, the product of the machinations of a political party that proudly waved the dubious banner of Marxism-Leninism." -more

* * * Looking at this Golden Oldie makes me sad because today, twenty years later, I just don't share the optimism I displayed in the cartoon I drew back in 1989.