BADIL

Official final status negotiations on the core issues of the Palestinian/Arab - Israeli conflict opened according to schedule in September 1999 and were temporarily discontinued four months later, without having proceeded beyond the presentation of the initial starting positions by the Israeli and Palestinian delegations (see al Majdal/ 4). Negotiations went into crisis in January 2000 over Israel's aggressive settlement policy in the 1967 occupied territories. More than 3,000 new settlement units have been started since Barak was elected, bringing the total number of units under construction in Israeli settlements to 7,120, nearly 2,000 more than under Netanyahu (Peace Now figures cited by AP, 21/2/00).

 Negotiations were officially discontinued inFebruary, as a result of the unilateral Israeli decision to exclude Palestinian lands in the vicinity of Jerusalem (Abu Dis, Anata, al- Sawwahra) from the areas scheduled for the second Israeli redeployment from 6.1 percent of the West Bank based on the Sharem Al-Sheikh Memorandum (September 1999).

On 30 March, Palestinians commemorated the 24th anniversary of the violent Israeli repression of Palestinian protests against land expropriation in the Galilee in 1976, which resulted in six killed and more than 70 injured Palestinian demonstrators.
The leadership of the Palestinian community inside Israel called for a general strike to commemorate land day to protest ongoing expropriation of land and discrimination in planning, development, and allocation of financial resources for Palestinian localities in Israel. Large demonstrations were held throughout the 1967 occupied territories and inside 1948 Palestine/Israel. In Jerusalem, Palestinians protested at the site of a new Israeli settlement in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras al- Amud. A demonstration was also held at al-Ram, the northern checkpoint to Jerusalem, which was been in place since Israel imposed a military closure in 1993, denying most Palestinians access to Jerusalem. Clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police and soldiers erupted throughout the West Bank, Gaza, and inside Israel.

"We Learn the Lessons from our Past and Design our Tools for the Struggle for a Better Future"

Statement issued by Ittijah, the Union of Palestinian NGOs in 1948 Palestine/Israel, March 2000 The 24th anniversary of the Land Day is the best occasion to contemplate the impact of this historical day in our people's history, our points of weakness and strength, our identity, our institutions, and our responsibility towards ourselves and towards our people.

This anniversary symbolizes and embodies a major station in our people's struggle. The 1976 Land Day is considered as a qualitative step toward the crystallization of the role of the Palestinian minority in Israel in the struggle, although it was neither the first nor the last day in our fight against the ruling Israeli establishment and its discriminatory, repressive policies in place since the 1948 Nakba. Our struggle is a struggle for the Palestinian national issues, and a struggle for the collective rights of a minority who wants to live with honor in its land. Land Day proves the power of our people, if they decide - as institutions and leadership - to opt for struggle in order to achieve our collective rights and the rights of the whole Palestinian people.

The British Mandate
Land ownership under the British Mandate was based on the Ottoman Land Code, with additional legislation adopted during the Mandate. Under the Ottoman Code, land was classified in five categories with provisions for documentation of registration. The two basic types of land were mulk (private lands), and miri (land
leased from the state). While the latter was subject to certain limitations, miri land was inherited, sold, and generally regarded as the land of the user. Under the code, individuals able to prove cultivation of a plot of land for 10 years or more were issued a title of ownership.

Internally Displaced Palestinians Still Waiting to Return to their Villages
Members of the current Labor government committee on the future of Palestinian residents from the villages of Iqrit and Bir'am,
including Yossi Beilin, Avraham Shochat, Haim Oron, Haim Ramon, as well as Yossi Kucik, director general of the prime minister's ffice, visited the area in advance of the High Court's expected May ruling on the residents petition to finally return to their villages some five decades after an initial High Court ruling in their favor. Recommendations supported by the current committee (Ha’aretz, 21 March 2000) include those set down by a 1996 committee under the previous Labor government. These include:  Allocation of 900 dunums of land together for both villages even though the villages owned a total of 28,000 dunums in 1948 before they were expelled and the villages were razed to the ground.