A decade after abolishing the Military Rule over its Palestinian citizens in 1966, Israel resumed the expropriation of Palestinian-owned land in the Galilee. Land Day, first held on March 30, 1976, as part of the Palestinian response, has been marked every year since as a day of protest against dispossession and landgrab. Transcripts of a Settlement Committee session from February 1979, chaired by Minister Ariel Sharon offers a frank, direct depiction of Israel’s plan for the swift takeover of Galilee lands: Through mass forestation and fast-track establishment of small Israeli settlement points (“Mitzpe”), the state could secure, “land reserves for settlement activity for the next 20, 30, or 40 years.”

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Transcripts of the joint government and World Zionist Organization Settlement Committee
February 7, 1979