One step at a time: activist’s journey to Palestine on foot raises awareness of occupation

AMMAN — Taking one step at a time, literally, Swedish human rights activist Benjamin Ladraa has been walking to Palestine since August of 2017, to raise awareness about the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

After visiting Palestine as part of a musical performance in 2017 in Hebron, the 25-year-old Ladraa saw the harsh conditions, including the checkpoints and racist laws, that Palestinians have to endure on a daily basis and decided to take action.

Prior to embarking on his journey, Ladraa was a musician. After the decision to walk to Palestine, he sold his musical instruments and started saving money for his trip to Palestine on foot. 

He bought the necessary equipment for his trip, including the Palestinian flag, and initiated the journey; crossing borders, continents, and seas to reach his goal.

Ladraa arrived in Amman after being in Lebanon for more than a week; however, he had to take a plane from Beirut to Amman, and a boat from Turkey to Lebanon due to the crisis in Syria.

“The best way to show support is by being active for Palestine, taking action, and joining initiatives, if there’s none, you can start your own initiative, because I believe the world lives with action and actions speak louder than words always,” he said at a press conference held in Amman earlier this month.

After meeting Palestinians in diaspora in 13 different countries and visiting 10 refugee camps in Lebanon, he said:  “We need to do as much as we can, as individuals, as groups, as societies on every single level, to achieve the world we want to live in.”

“[The occupation] will not stop by itself; it will stop by many people taking action, putting a lot of pressure on the governments of Israel and the US to stop the human rights violations. They will not do so by themselves, it’s always when mass movements rise up and demand a different world.”

“We, as people, cannot feel empathy or be motivated and active for other people and problems if we don’t know about them,” the activist added.

From his experience, he said that even though Sweden is a pro-Palestine state on the political sphere, most people, however, do not have the whole image, so he took it upon himself to narrate the Palestinian side of the story. 

During his 4,800km journey, Ladraa was attacked in Bratislava, he told The Jordan Times, where he was stopped by a man driving a car with his ten-year-old daughter next to him, and attacked Ladraa for having the Palestinian flag with him, tried to grab the flag from him and threw the activist’s belongings to the ground.

He added that he receives many comments from Israelis telling him to focus on the Syrian conflict instead, “but I always reply with: if you want to do something for Syria, maybe you should stop occupying their lands”.

Since he started his journey from Sweden, many developments have occurred on the regional and global levels; one of which was US President Donald Trump’s recognitionof Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the relocation of the US embassy, which Ladraa described as “absurd” and “outrageous”. 

“We can do so much more than we think we can, we can break our boundaries. Walking to Palestine is a small step; I hope my future steps will be bigger,” he added.

Palestinian traveller Motasim Ilaiwi, who accompanied Ladraa in Turkey, said in order to achieve change, one needs two things: awareness and determination. 

“Humanity today manifests itself in the most beautiful form; as a person walks thousands of miles on foot in order to attract the attention of the world to a just cause and a sacred right of a people who have been oppressed for many decades, the world has been and still is watching,” Ola Abed, head of the Rajeaa Association for National Work, said.

“Today, Palestine elicits feelings of humanity and humanitarianism among the free people of the world. Every step in your journey reaffirms the right of the Palestinians and the right to exist,” Abed continued.

Ladraa explained: “Every case in the world is unique according to its history, circumstances and people. But what unites all cases is the common humanity and the abuses being committed against them, and the loss of a family member is the same for every person no matter where they are.”

The Swedish activist will be in Amman until Friday, July 6, after which he will head to the King Hussein bridge to reach Palestine. His journey can be tracked on #WalktoPalestine hashtag on and @WalktoPalestine on Instagram and Facebook.