Pence faces cool reception during important Middle East visit
US Vice-President Mike Pence will seek to show during a trip to the Middle East next week that the Trump administration can still partner with Arab and Muslim leaders on security matters and broker peace, despite the backlash following President Donald Trump’s declaration that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.
Pence is expected to receive an enthusiastic welcome from leaders in Israel. Elsewhere, the reception will be cooler.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi plans to continue with a scheduled meeting with Pence -- a decision the White House says is evidence of the value leaders in the region place on maintaining relationships with the administration.
But Palestinian leaders cancelled their meetings with the vicepresident, and he will not visit Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank -- a particularly meaningful stop for the evangelical Christian. He will also spend less time in Egypt than planned, with a trip to the Pyramids of Giza and a meeting with the leader of Coptic Christians off his itinerary.
As he planned his trip, Pence knew it was possible that Arab and Palestinian leaders would cancel their meetings in response to Trump’s declaration. He was briefed on potential unrest and other negative consequences of the announcement. But he had been cautiously optimistic that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and other critics of Trump’s decision would proceed with the meetings, ultimately regarding face time with the US vice-president as both strategically valuable and an opportunity to express their disappointment in person, a person familiar with the matter said.
Trump’s Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, will return to the region on Tuesday ahead of Pence’s trip.
Pence was one of the foremost
Israel says the entire city, including East Jerusalem, is its eternal capital.
Palestinians were infuriated by Trump’s announcement because they saw it as siding with Israel on the most sensitive issue in the conflict. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said Trump’s move disqualifies the US from continuing in its role as the traditional mediator of peace talks.
Trump said his decision merely recognised the reality that Jerusalem already served as Israel’s capital, and was not meant to prejudge the final borders of the city.
US Vice-President Mike Pence, proponents in the Trump administration for a declaration that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, and for the relocation of the US embassy. His argument bested those of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defence Secretary James Mattis, both of whom opposed the idea, according to people familiar with the internal debate.
Pence has described himself as ‘‘a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order’’, and has been outspoken about his deep devotion to Israel as part of his religious beliefs since long before Donald Trump’s entrance into politics. But his advocacy for Trump’s
however, was forced to delay a trip to the Middle East amid the outcry over Trump’s decision.
Aides to Abbas said the Palestinian president would not meet with Pence, who is now scheduled to arrive in Israel from Egypt on Thursday.
Abbas had originally planned to host Pence, a devout Christian, in the biblical West Bank town of Bethlehem. White House officials also said Pence had no plans to visit the contested city’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre – the site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified and resurrected.
Also yesterday, in another declaration likely to inflame passions among Palestinians and Jerusalem decision has taken on a political aspect, amid speculation about the administration’s ultimate goals for the region and Pence’s own presidential ambitions.
Former US Middle East peace negotiator Aaron David Miller, a vice-president at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington, said that while Pence’s religious views clearly shaped his views on Israel, the administration’s Jerusalem announcement appeared to be driven more by domestic considerations than by strategic concerns. others across the Middle East, senior Trump administration officials outlined their view that the Western Wall in East Jerusalem, considered Judaism’s holiest site, will ultimately be declared a part of Israel.
Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a senior adviser to Abbas, said such a policy, which ‘‘decides unilaterally’’ on issues of final status negotiations, was ‘‘unacceptable’’.
Meanwhile, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, one Palestinian was shot and killed after he attacked an Israeli policeman with a knife, stabbing him twice and wounding him moderately, Israeli police said. Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police were investigating the incident, and whether the attacker posed as a journalist to get close to the Israeli officer, and if he was carrying explosives.
Video of the incident later emerged online, showing the alleged attacker retreating after apparently stabbing the officer. Israeli forces shoot him in the legs, and again after he falls. A suicide bomb belt then becomes visible underneath his jacket, but it was not immediately clear if it was authentic.
As two ambulances approach, the Israeli officers fire several more gunshots at the man, and medical teams are forced to wait before evacuating him. The Palestinian Health Ministry said he died of his wounds.
In East Jerusalem, protesters waved Palestinian flags and chanted ‘‘Jerusalem is Arab’’ as they walked the narrow streets of the Old City. Some threw bottles of water at police.
The clashes were fiercer in the West Bank, where about 13 protesters were injured by live fire and 61 by rubber bullets, while dozens more were treated for tear gas inhalation, according to the Red Crescent.
In the city of Nablus, some Palestinians used slingshots to hurl rocks at Israeli security forces, while others torched tyres to use the thick plumes of smoke as cover. Others, wearing masks, threw firebombs at an armoured water cannon vehicle being used to disperse the crowds.