Arab leaders deny coordination with police on 'Land Day'
Arab MKs and religious clerics rebuff Israeli police chief's claims that pre-arranged security coordination between the two sides is in place ahead of annual day marking Israel's 1976 expropriation of lands; MK Zoabi: 'To coordinate with the police on this day of struggle is a contradiction.'
"We don’t need to worry about Land Day. We are coordinating with the Arab sector. Over the last 15 years I have not known any events that are out of the ordinary. I don’t think anything will happen this year,” Alsheikh said.
However, city leaders and MKs declared shortly after that they were unaware of any cooperation arrangements with the police.
Land Day marks events that took place on 30 March 1976 when the Israeli government, headed by Yitzhak Rabin, expropriated Arab lands in the Galilee. Over the years, the day came to symbolize Arab national identity on which Arabs demand rights they say they are deprived of.
Processions to mark the occasion are set to take place in Arraba, located in the lower Galilee in northern Israel and in Umm al-Fahm.
In addition, the imam of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, Akrama Sabari, announced last Friday that large protests would be staged throughout east Jerusalem against the Jerusalem Magistrates’ Court decision to enable religious people to hold Talmudic ceremonies next to the gates of the mosque.
“We won’t recognize the court’s decision, because it has no right to discuss the matter. The decision harms and aggravates the worshipers, especially on Friday on which prayers take place during Land Day,” Sabari said.
Chairman of the Popular Committee in Jisr al-Zarqa and a social political activist also insisted that there was no pre-planned coordination with the police.
“There is no coordination as defined by the police. For years the Arab public has marked national and social occasions like Land Day and Nakba Day,” he said. “The fact that the police are informed of the activity in order to maintain public order and to protect the participants in the events does not mean there is coordination.
“The police is taking steps without any connection to the organizers and unfortunately, also in other cases in which the police was allegedly ‘coordinating’ with the organizers, it didn’t shy away from using violence against the protestors,” he added.
According to former MK Mohammad Barakeh too, no coordination with the police has been set up.
“We had no coordination with the police. We are responsible for the activities that are planned in the north on Friday and Saturday,” he said in statements that were confirmed by Mayor of Arraba, Ali Asla.
Due to the sensitivity surrounding the occasion, which Joint List MK Hanin Zoabi described as a “day of struggle”, some Arabs feel that coordination to the police would constitute a contradiction.
“Land Day is a day of struggle and the idea of ‘coordination’ with the police contradicts the meaning of the day,” she said. “The protestors don’t want to see the police. There is no need for its presence beyond to provoke and to harass us like the Shin Bet, to arrest the youth and afterwards blame them for all kinds of false charges.”
Turning to the heads of the Arab councils, Zoabi said: “If you want to gain the trust of your public, keep the police away from us, and implement the true will of the public. Don’t be afraid of the police.”
Residents of eastern Jerusalem called on people to join the protests on Friday after Friday prayers—a particularly volatile time during periods of heightened tensions, as radical Muslim clerics whip up hysteria during sermons. Some called on the participants to block to the roads in response to the court’s decision.
“This government is looking to provoke us, we are ready for all. Land Day will also go to east Jerusalem,” they warned.
