Fight Back News Service is circulating the following March 30 statement from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) that was issued to mark the Day of the Land, 2014:

On this year, Land Day marks intensified struggle on Palestinian land in its entirely. The Zionist enemy is not maneuvering toward it nor nibbling gradually at our land. The occupation has taken its occupation of Palestine to the point where it demands Palestinian and Arab recognition of the “Jewishness of the state” as the legitimate embodiment of the Zionist movement and its falsified history. It has stolen the religious term “Land of Israel” and transformed it to a geopolitical claim on the land of Palestine as the “Jewish homeland,” and is acting constantly to enact more laws and regulations to seize yet more land and displace our people, to expand settlements on every area in the land of Palestine, including Jerusalem which is specifically targeted.

The sacrifice and struggle of our people in the ’48 occupied areas on March 30, 1976, was not only a defense against the confiscation of thousands of acres of the lands of Arraba, Sakhnin and Deir Hanna, but also an expression of the collective consciousness of our people, the threat of the Zionist project against all Palestinian land, and to defend the Palestinian people and their right to live on their land.

These same meanings are embodied wherever our people mark this anniversary, adhering to the rights of the Palestinian people on the entire land of historic Palestine, the land of our ancestors, the heirs of all civilizations that passed through them, a reality that will not be changed despite all the failing attempts of the occupation state to force its recognition or to change our awareness of the land by building settlements, changing signs on the roads and renaming Palestinian towns and villages with Hebrew names.

The right of return of Palestinian refugees to their land is the core of the struggle to liberate Palestine; the insistence on this right is linked very closely to the current struggle on the ground, which requires us to center this goal in our national program and struggle and entirely reject any initiatives, negotiations or deals that undermine or detract from this fundamental right.

We also see the very serious matter that has been generated in these ongoing negotiations around the “exchange of land,” which includes recognizing the rights of “Israel” in the majority of the land of Palestine. This land is all Palestinian land and any approval of the “exchange” of one part for another means providing cover and legitimacy to the violent confiscation of our land in 1948 and the ongoing displacement of our people of the ’48 areas, and is unacceptable.

On this day, he land calls for the people to protect themselves and the land. To reject division, uphold resistance and achieve national unity, to act to bring the negotiations to an end, to confront the ongoing and comprehensive vicious attacks on our land and our people, to achieve a national program of struggle that reflects the objectives of our people, affirms their rights firmly, and adopts all means of struggle to achieve those rights.

On this day, our salutes and greetings to the masses of our people in the ’48 areas, and our salutes to the six martyrs killed on March 30, 1976 as they confronted the enemy forces that repressed demonstrations and marches that swept through cities, towns and villages of the Palestinian people in the ’48 areas in defense of the land of the Galilee. We stand together with all of our people in defense of all of our occupied land, throughout the geographical and historical land of Palestine.

Glory to the martyrs of Land Day. Glory to the martyrs of freedom. Freedom for the prisoners, and victory for our people.

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