2 huge Trump murals on West Bank wall
Two murals showing an oversized U.S. President Donald Trump have appeared on Israel’s West Bank separation barrier, just yards from where the elusive artist Banksy decorated a hotel this year.
The new drawings popped up on the edge of Bethlehem, the Palestinian city where the barrier largely consists of a wall of towering slabs of concrete.
In one scene, Trump is shown hugging and kissing a real Israeli army watchtower built into the wall, as his left arm reaches around the tower. Little pink hearts flutter from Trump’s mouth.
In another drawing, Trump is depicted wearing a Jewish skullcap and placing a hand on a wall — a scene taken from the U.S. president’s May visit to Jerusalem’s Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray. A cartoon “thought bubble” next to him says: “I’m going to build you a brother,” a possible reference to Trump’s plans to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.
The murals were signed “lushsux” — a signature that according to a 2016 report by the Australian newspaper The Age has been used in the past by a Melbourne street artist.
A Twitter account in the name “lushsux” published the mural of Trump with his hand on a wall on Monday. The second mural was seen by an Associated Press cameraman for the first time on Friday.
The new graffiti is just a few metres from “The Walled Off Hotel,” a Palestinianrun guest house that opened this year and sarcastically bills itself as having the “worst view in the world.”
The nine-room hotel was decorated with Banksy’s trademark political murals, including one in “Banksy’s Room” that shows a masked Palestinian and a helmeted Israeli soldier in a pillow fight.
Israel began building the barrier a decade ago. Palestinians say the barrier, which slices off about 10 per cent of the West Bank, amounts to a land grab. Several U.S.-led attempts to negotiate the terms of a Palestinian state on these lands have failed.
Trump said early on in his term that he would try to broker a deal, but has not offered a way forward.