Pence aide says Israel visit will happen

JERUSALEM — Mike Pence’s office on Monday said the U.S. vice president still plans on visiting Israel this month, despite an apparent delay in the schedule.

Pence had been scheduled to arrive during the week of Jan. 14. But Israel’s Foreign Ministry said Monday that the visit was no longer on its schedule for January.

Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon gave no reason for the apparent delay but said it was still possible that Pence could still decide to come. “It’s not on our schedule,” he said. “We can always adapt it and change it.”

Later Monday, Pence’s deputy chief of staff, Jarrod Agen, said the visit was still on. “As we said, we are going later this month,” he said, without providing specific dates. Agen also said that Pence is still planning to go to Egypt.

Pence had been scheduled to visit Israel last month but called off the trip at late notice and said he would go instead in January.

The official reason for the delay was the Senate tax vote. But it also followed uproar in the region over President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The Palestinians, who seek Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem as their capital, canceled a planned pre-Christmas meeting with Pence in Bethlehem to protest Trump’s decision.

Leading Muslim and Christian clerics in neighboring Egypt also said they would refuse to meet with Pence during a planned stop in Cairo.