Crowd-sourced political graffiti hits West Bank wall

Australian artist Lushsux adds Trump, Hillary, Zuckerberg and Larry David to security barrier.

By AMY SPIRO
Palestinian women walk by a mural of Donald Trump on the West Bank separation wall, October 2017 (photo credit: AMMAR AWAD / REUTERS)
Palestinian women walk by a mural of Donald Trump on the West Bank separation wall, October 2017
(photo credit: AMMAR AWAD / REUTERS)
The West Bank security barrier has long been a target for angry and entrepreneurial graffiti artists - on both sides.
But enigmatic Australian graffiti artist Lushsux has been taking things to new levels over the past few weeks, with huge murals of some familiar faces. Throughout the process, Lushsux has been crowd-sourcing graffiti requests, and has added images of US President Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and even actor Larry David to the wall in the area of Bethlehem.
In one of the artist's newest additions to the wall, he painted a mural of Hillary Clinton asking "What happened?" (the title of her new book) next to a grinning Trump with the speech bubble "I happened."

Earlier in the week, Lushsux added the face of Zuckerberg, with robot eyes and a caption reading "The more of your data I gather the more I understand what it means to be human" and jokingly dubbing him the "founder of MySpace."

Throughout the week, the artist has been crowd-sourcing his graffiti, asking followers on social media to give him input on his work.
"Wall the zuck? Or will I get zucced for painting him?" he asked before painting the Zuckerberg mural.
Last week Lushsux posted an image of Curb Your Enthusiasm's Larry David on Instagram, asking his followers "Paint this on Israel/Palestine border wall ? Yeh or nah?" After a resounding yes, he then posted a photo of the mural - with a blank speech bubble - and requested input on the caption. "Best comment goes in the bubble..."
The winner?
"'This place would be a fantastic place to come if Jews were cheating on their wives' - Bernie Sanders." When Sanders was running for president, David portrayed him in an SNL sketch.
Lushsux also asked if he should add a meme of Trump firing back at rapper Eminem - the resounding yes meant the image was also added.
In it, the US president is seen writing with the caption "Dear Slim, I wrote you but you still ain't callin', I left my cell, my pager and the White House phone at the bottom." The text is a parody of the song "Stan" by Eminem, the rapper who released a biting, angry freestyle rap slamming the US president last week.
While 10 days ago the artist asked his fans for suggestions on a Harvey Weinstein mural to add to the wall, one has yet to appear. He has, however, added an image of actor Morgan Freeman alongside a quote by former South African president Nelson Mandela: "We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians." (Mandela said it, Freeman did not).  
Before he turned to more political figures, Lushsux had been painting characters from the animated adult sitcom Rick and Morty on the wall.
In one image, the two characters, who are grandfather and grandson, appear with the speech bubble “BURP* M-Morty welcome *BURP* to Palestine, we gotta solve the *burp* whole Damn Middle East crisis.”
Back in August, Lushsux painted on the wall images of Trump embracing a watchtower and, in another image, whispering, “I’m going to build you a brother.”
The artist did not respond to requests for comment.


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