Trumps’ holy trail Family trip to Wailing Wall follows clash over site’s ownership
DRESSED in white, Melania Trump touched the Wailing Wall during her husband’s historic visit to Jerusalem.
Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka also visited the women’s section of the wall, the holiest prayer site for Jews.
Miss Trump, who converted to Judaism to marry her husband Jared Kushner, closed her eyes as she pressed her hand against the limestone yesterday.
Her father, wearing a black skullcap, became the first sitting US president to visit the fiercely contested site, also known as the Western Wall.
In Israel on the latest leg of his first overseas trip, Mr Trump walked slowly towards the wall, pressed his right hand flat against it and then, as is customary, tucked a secret prayer note into a crevice.
Amid tight security, he was not accompanied by Israeli leaders and went alone to the wall.
It followed a clash between the US and the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu over the status of Jerusalem after the White House refused to say whether it considered the wall to be part of Israel.
But yesterday US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said: “The wall is part of Jerusalem.”
He did not elaborate on the delicate question of whether the Trump administration would change US policy over the status of Jerusalem, which both Israelis and Palestinians want to claim as their capital.
The Wailing Wall sits in the Old City, which the Israelis captured from Jordan in 1967.
Last week Mr Trump’s national security adviser HR McMaster refused to say whether the wall was in Israel after a US official planning the President’s visit said it was in the West Bank – part of territory Palestinians want recognised as a state.
Israeli Prime Minister Mr Netanyahu said the wall would “always be under Israeli sovereignty” and would never be given up.
The White House pointedly refused to let Mr Netanyahu join Mr Trump’s visit to the wall.