Exercising the right to movement

A self-described ‘non-political’ West Bank marathon gets more than 3,000 runners moving to highlight the restrictions Palestinians face.

By ARIEL COHEN
Participants run in Israeli Bible Marathon in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. (photo credit: REUTERS)
Participants run in Israeli Bible Marathon in the West Bank town of Bethlehem.
(photo credit: REUTERS)
You could immediately tell that running a marathon was new to the West Bank. During warm-ups, a bystander offered up a cigarette (“To relax! You must calm down”); around mile seven, a man brewing coffee on the side of the road was pouring cups for runners (“For speed”); and toward the end of the course, another man offered liquor (“For the pain”).
Warming up for the third annual Palestine Marathon last Friday, more than 3,000 runners danced and stretched to the sound of Top 40 pop music well before 7 a.m. The temperature was above 25º, but many athletes were wearing head scarves and full-body coverings.
For many runners, the Palestine Marathon manages to connect the political and the personal in a way few other sporting events can, as each runner’s sense of accomplishment is not only physical, but also emotional in a way that hits close to home.
Friday’s contenders participated in 10K, 21K and 42K races. Some 739 runners were international, while 2,354 were from the Palestinian territories, including 50 runners from Gaza.
The race’s message comes from its founding organization, Right to Movement, a nonprofit that two Danish women started in Jerusalem and that has spread throughout Israel and the Palestinian territories.
According to the founders, the organization is a nonreligious and non-political social movement, a global community of runners striving for the human right to freedom of movement. They claim this despite the fact that Right to Movement focuses on the restrictions that residents of the Palestinian territories face as a result of the “occupation.”
The security barrier was constructed between 2000 and 2003 with the aim of preventing terrorism. During that period, there were more than 75 suicide bombings in Israel, but after the barrier’s construction, the numbers dropped dramatically.
Nonetheless, opponents argue that the wall separates Palestinians from the rest of the country and undermines the residents’ basic human rights – such as the right to travel freely between the West Bank and the rest of the country. Palestinian residents often spend hours waiting to pass through mandatory checkpoints and inspections.
“We say [the marathon] is not political, but I don’t think you can breathe down here without it being political,” says Signe Fischer-Smidt, one of the two Right to Movement founders.
“One of the basic human rights is the right to movement, and we all have that in theory.
It’s stated in the UN Human Rights Resolution Declaration 13,” she says. “With running, you can just put on your shoes and go. It inspired me that you can claim your own right to move physically as a runner, but you can also make your society move. The peace negotiations aren’t going anywhere. It seems like both sides aren’t interested.
So it’s like a stalemate. But with running, you can maybe inspire some movement at the political level.”
The West Bank marathon is the only marathon in the Palestinian territories, as the UN canceled the Gaza Marathon in 2013 after Hamas banned women from participating alongside men. This is the first year that Palestinian and Israeli authorities have allowed Gazans to participate in the race.
Among the 50 Gazan participants was first-place finisher Nadar al-Masri, who completed the 42K race in two hours and 57 minutes.
Fischer-Smidt co-founded the organization after moving to Israel in 2009 and working at a human rights NGO in east Jerusalem. She would jog in the streets, and it soon became obvious that there was no running culture in the Palestinian territories, especially for women.
Sometimes, when she went on long runs, she would get stopped at checkpoints.
So she began looking for a solution. But her experience working in human rights taught her that the cause had to be something to which everyone could relate, even if they didn’t consider themselves political.
She decided to combine her passion for running with her humanitarian work, and the marathon was born.
“I felt like everyone working on the occupation. It was very academic, so to speak; it was very political. And I felt like we should try to do something to engage more people and where we could tell a different story,” she says. “We don’t always want to tell the story about conflict and hatred and struggles; we want to tell the story of Palestinian life.”
RACE ORGANIZERS chose Bethlehem as the location for the race because they wanted it to take place within Area A, where Palestinian police could be in full control. The West Bank does not actually have a straight 42.195-km.
stretch of land – the length of an Olympic marathon – so the marathon consisted of two 21- km. loops through the city. It began in Manger Square, by the Church of the Nativity, then went along the security barrier, through two refugee camps and past a turnaround point at a checkpoint.
At the starting line, the mayor of Bethlehem spoke about the importance of Right to Movement, and the organizers released balloons and doves. Cheers erupted through the crowds as the 42K competitors lined up at the start, followed by the 21K and 10K competitors.
The route itself strikes an emotional chord, regardless of one’s political stance or knowledge of the situation.
The course was physically challenging as well: The rolling hills of the West Bank kept the runners’ muscles burning the entire race, and the oppressive heat slowed their pace. Even the most experienced runners likely felt relief when they approached the hydration stations along the route.
Around the 3-km. mark, runners took a left to run along the security barrier, which is covered in graffiti begging for change. While some of the graffiti takes a violent, hateful tone, some of it conveys a more peaceful message. One particularly resounding section of the wall that every runner passed reads, “Love Wins.”
Next, the athletes wound through two refugee camps and through town. One wall outside the Aida refugee camp was painted black and listed all the names and ages of the Palestinian children who died during last summer’s war in Gaza. In the 10K race, three Palestinian women carried a large cross on their backs with grenade shells strapped to the top.
“The politics was definitely my final decision-making factor in signing up for this race,” Ramallah resident Yamen Hawit said at the starting line. “I think what people around the world don’t realize is how much they take for granted, little things like being able to move freely. They don’t understand the concept of a military occupation and not being able to move freely from one city to the next.”
Despite the strong political message, the main theme throughout the race was joy.
Along the way, children came out of their houses to wave and give high fives. Elderly women in hijabs pumped their fists while jumping up and down, screaming, “Yalla! Yalla!” Not every runner was there for political reasons, either.
Adnan Jaber, a runner from east Jerusalem, came in 10th in the half-marathon.
“I love the sport, the competition and the social thing that happens,” said Jaber. “At the beginning and the end, it was very special.
Everyone is there waiting for you and clapping. It feels like you did a really great job. I loved those young children who were standing there doing high fives. It encourages me.
Inshallah [God willing], I will come back next year and do it.”
While the race was a Danish brainchild, organizers hope to turn the race over to the locals eventually and make it a tool for enhancing the community.
“The goal for the Palestine Marathon is to be 100-percent Palestinian-owned and -managed. I should be able to run it and not organize it,” says Fischer-Smidt. “And I really hope that it will be a sporting event that benefits the city.
We purchased everything locally, such as bananas, water, printing things. Also, there are over 700 internationals here, and they are eating in restaurants and staying at hotels and so on, and that’s actually a lot for a city like Bethlehem, which is normally a day trip destination. So we are really hoping that this will benefit the city.”
This year, she says, Palestinians are “making the race their own.” Right to Movement now has running communities in Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Ramallah. The runners are taking charge of the race – buying the water and bananas, securing the area and marking off the course. All purchasing and production prior to the race took place within the Palestinian territories. The town even got in on the act, blocking off all the roads for the morning so runners could go through uninterrupted. Police and Red Crescent personnel also lined the route.
“We are more afraid of cars hitting runners than a political conflict,” says Fischer- Smidt. “They’ve never done a marathon before. They didn’t really block the roads so much last year, but I met with [the mayor], and he promised that they will be closed completely.”
Palestinian runners are also finding a stronger sense of pride in the race as it gains popularity and recognition.
The desire for the right to movement is no longer constrained to the walls of the West Bank.
Hani al-Far, an Adidas vendor who works in Ramallah, ran in the 10K race with his younger children. He is the only vendor who sells professional Adidas running gear in the West Bank.
For him, the race was a point of pride.
“We have a group of runners who started with Right to Movement in Ramallah,” he explained before the marathon.
“On our Adidas team, we have a champion, Abed al-Nasar.
Two internationals came in before him, but he was the Palestinian winner [in 2014], so he is the champion to us; he is No. 1. I hope this year he will make first place.”
As for the event’s political character, Far said that “for sure it is political, because we are surrounded by it every day. And it is our right for everybody to move everywhere without borders, without any kind of checkpoint. It is the right of every human to live freely, and I hope everyone will be able to move freely without borders or conflicts.”
He added, “My children decided to run in the marathon for fun, but they know what the meaning is. Every day, they pass by the checkpoints and the barrier. They know why we are running.”


Related Tags
marathon