ISRAEL - March 30 - Arab Land Day.

Israeli Arabs mark their 25th Land Day, which commemorates their emergence from a relatively docile population into a political force during a large protest against land expropriations in 1976. It also marks the day when Israeli forces first put down an Israeli Arab demonstration with bullets, killing 6. Anxious about the Land Day demonstrations, Israeli police negotiated terms with Arab community leaders to lay the groundwork for a peaceful day. The Arab leaders promised quiet if the police stayed outside their towns, which they did. (In the Israeli Arab community, life is divided into before and after October 2000, when Israeli policemen shot and killed 13 Israeli Arabs during tense, raucous demonstrations. For many, hope then died that they would ever be accepted as full Israeli citizens with equal status and rights. The March 30 demonstrations, which were vividly pro-Palestinian, ended peacefully. The Jewish establishment, eager to keep the Israeli-Palestinian conflict outside the borders of Israel proper, breathed a sigh of relief.

The calm in Sakhnin, where more than 10,000 Israeli Arabs gathered, contrasted strikingly with one of the most violent days of street protests in the West Bank and Gaza, where 6 Palestinians were killed in clashes during mass protests at the edges of several Palestinian cities - see Arabs-Israel). Al Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem, a flashpoint that has been quiet for months, was the scene of renewed violence after Friday's (March 30) prayers concluded. Still, while peaceful in contrast, the mood of the demonstrators in Sakhnin did not bode well for Jewish-Arab relations inside Israel. Most were gloomy about the prospects for reconciliation, and some were militant. At the high school, youths unfurled a huge Palestinian flag while Israeli and American flags were burned. In the streets, some chanted, "Hizbollah, take revenge for us", and "We raise a drink for you, Iraq". (Arab citizens make up to 18% of the Israeli population of more than 6m, and for decades they have been caught between two worlds either fully Israeli or Palestinian. In October, after the Palestinian uprising erupted in the West Bank and Gaza, many Jewish Israelis were horrified by the Israeli Arabs' militancy, their identification with Palestinian anti-Israeli sentiments, and by what was seen as the violent nature of their demonstrations. Israeli Arabs were horrified by the killings of their youths, who were fluent in Hebrew and Arab and card-carrying Israeli citizens. An Israeli inquiry into the killings is under way, but many Israeli Arabs do not trust the proceedings. Tensions have been so high in the courtroom, where grieving parents have attacked Israeli police officers as they were testifying, that the hearings are now going to be closed).