Huge Trump murals appear on W. Bank barrier – UN chief to visit Israel, Palestine

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UNITED NATIONS, Aug 5, (Agencies): UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres will pay his first visit since taking the UN helm to Israel and the Palestinian territories, including the Gaza Strip, at the end of the month, diplomats said Thursday. The UN chief will hold talks with Israeli leaders, travel to Ramallah to meet Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and to the Gaza Strip, where the United Nations runs a major Palestinian aid program, during the three-day visit beginning Aug 28. Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon said the visit will allow Guterres to “build a relationship” with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He will also hold meetings with the Israeli president and defense minister. “We are very happy about this visit,” Danon told AFP.

Challenges
“It’s a great opportunity for the secretary general to experience Israel, to meet the leaders of Israel and to understand the challenges that Israel faces day-in and day-out.” Palestinian ambassador Riyad Mansour described the upcoming visit as “very important,” indicating that it signaled a stronger UN focus on the plight of Palestinians. “The UN has been involved since its inception with the question of Palestine and will remain involved until the question is resolved in all its aspects on the basis of international law,” he told AFP by email. The visit comes as diplomatic efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks appear deadlocked. Guterres, a former prime minister of Portugal, “is experienced. He has been to Israel in the past. He knows the complexity of the issues. He is not someone who comes to our region and has no clue about what is happening,” said Danon.

The Israeli government will discuss strengthening the mission of the UN interim force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), said Danon, following a series of skirmishes along the UN-monitored demarcation line between Israel and Lebanon. Relations between the United Nations and Israel have been tense over the expansion of Jewish settlements, which the world body has condemned as illegal. Since taking over from Ban Kimoon on Jan 1, Guterres has been cautious in his approach to the Israeli-Palestinian confl ict, partly in response to US accusations that the United Nations was biased against Israel.

In March, the UN chief demanded that a report by a UN body be withdrawn after it accused Israel of imposing an apartheid system on the Palestinians. Guterres had initially distanced himself from the report, but the United States insisted that it be withdrawn altogether. During the recent fl areup of violence in Jerusalem, Guterres called for de-escalation and respect for the status quo at holy sites after Israel installed metal detectors at the Haram al-Sharif mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.

Two murals showing an oversized President Donald Trump have appeared on Israel’s West Bank separation barrier, just yards from where the elusive artist Banksy decorated a hotel earlier 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 fl utter from Trump’s mouth.

Depicted
In another drawing, Trump is depicted wearing a Jewish skullcap and placing a hand a wall — a scene taken from the US 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 US 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.

The artist was among those who participated in a Banksy show in Britain in 2015, the report said. 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 Friday. The new graffiti is just a few meters (yards) from “The Walled Off Hotel,” a Palestinian-run guest house that opened earlier 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, at the height of an armed Palestinian uprising, saying the divider is needed to keep suicide bombers and gunmen from entering Israel. Palestinians say the barrier, which slices off about 10 percent of the West Bank, amounts to a land grab. Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in 1967. Several US-led Israeli-Palestinian 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.

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