Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said that Palestinian non-violent popular resistance of the West Bank barrier has been successful in convincing the world to reconsider the Palestinian cause and advanced the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, in a radio address commemorating "Land Day" on Wednesday.

"Land remains the core of the Palestinian cause, and the reason for our existence and future," Fayyad said. "We [have been] here since the very beginning and we are certainly staying until the very end."

The Palestinian prime minister added that Land Day represents the Palestinian "long struggle" against land seizure, settlements, home demolitions and displacement.

MK Ahmed Tibi, told demonstrators gathered in the unrecognized Beduin town of Al-Arakib: "The color of our skin is the same as the color of the earth here. Still, there are those whose skin is the color of the snow in Moldova who are looking to expel us and dispossess us from this land," Tibi said, in an apparent reference to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Al-Arakib has been demolished and rebuilt nearly two dozen times in the last year by the Israel Lands Authority and Israel Police.

"This land here speaks Arabic," Tibi said. Adding that "rising racism" in Israel demands greater Jewish-Arab cooperation on the protest front.

cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); });

Organizers said 1,500 people attended the protest in