‘Annexation will cost us in blood’ protest in Donald Trump Square

RESIDENTS of a central Israeli town yesterday woke up to find the fountain in its Donald Trump Square spurting fake blood, after vandals poured red dye into the waters to protest against US-backed annexation plans for the West Bank.

“Annexation will cost us in blood,” was spray-painted in red letters next to the fountain in Petah Tikva.

The square was named after Trump last year in honour of the US president’s 2017 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The act was the latest in a series of protests against plans by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to begin annexing parts of the occupied West Bank, possibly as early as Wednesday.

Politicians like Netanyahu “are playing with fire”, the person behind the protest said. “There are steps that cannot be taken back,” said the unnamed protester, adding, “the fear of terrorist attacks during our childhood years we will never forget.”

The protester appeared to refer to the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, marked by scores of suicide bombings.

Donald Trump Square, next to Petah Tikva’s town hall, includes an illuminated sculpture with the Israeli and US flags. A sign calls Trump “the first to acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel”.

Netanyahu could bring proposals on annexation before the Israeli cabinet or parliament for a vote as early as Wednesday.

The proposals are based on Trump’s Middle East plan unveiled in January.

Israel’s government faces calls from campaigners to declare sovereignty over ancient Jewish ruins on land in the occupied West Bank that Israel does not plan to annex under the plan.

The annexation plan envisages Israel annexing Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley – about 30% of the West Bank.

Under Trump’s plan, a Palestinian state would be created in the rest of the West Bank, occupied by Israel since a 1967 war. An Israeli advocacy group called “Safeguarding Eternity” is worried about what will happen to Jewish archaeological sites in parts of the West Bank not included in Trump’s annexation map.

It wants Netanyahu’s government to guarantee Israeli control over sites such as the remnants of hilltop Hasmonean and Herodian forts dating back two millennia, and hundreds of ruins from earlier Jewish rule.