17 March 2017•Update: 19 March 2017
JERUSALEM
Israel’s Jerusalem municipality on Friday held the Seventh International Marathon amid tight security, according to Israeli police.
The event coincides with the 50-year anniversary of the so-called “reunification” of Jerusalem in 1967.
In a statement, police said hundreds of Israeli policemen had been deployed throughout the city to provide security for the event.
More than 30,000 people from 60 countries were expected to take part in Friday’s marathon.
Palestinian commentators, however, sharply criticized the event, which they say bears overtly political overtones.
Hanna Amireh, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, described Friday’s marathon as “a political event rather than an athletic one”.
“Such events promote the historical narrative of the occupying power,” he told Anadolu Agency.
Amireh went on to urge the international community to reject what he described as Israeli attempts to “Judaize” Jerusalem and efface its historical Arab and Muslim identity.
“We condemn Israeli attempts to portray Jerusalem as Israel’s capital by eroding its Arab, Muslim and Christian heritage,” he asserted.
In East Jerusalem, a number of Palestinian activists protested the marathon, which they say “promotes the Israeli version of history”.
“This marathon is meant to deliver the message that Jerusalem is an exclusively Jewish city,” one Palestinian resident of Jerusalem told Anadolu Agency.
“This event was organized on occupied land in clear violation of international law and ethical principles,” he added, preferring anonymity.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. It annexed the area in 1980, claiming it -- along with West Jerusalem -- as the “unified” capital of the self-proclaimed Jewish state in a move never recognized by the international community.
International law views the West Bank as "occupied territory" -- including East Jerusalem -- and considers all Jewish settlement-building on the land to be illegal.
