Pence wraps up Mideast trip, visits Western Wall
Palestinians rebuff meeting with VP
JERUSALEM — Vice President Mike Pence placed his hand on the hallowed Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City on Tuesdayas he wrapped up a four-day trip to the Mideast that ended with Palestinians still fuming over the Trump administration’s decision to recognize the city as Israel’s capital.
On a solemn visit to the holiest site where Jews can pray, Mr. Pence tucked a small white note of prayer in the wall’s cracks after touring the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Pence’s appearance there was seen by Israelis as a powerful statement, a continuing affirmation of the Trump administration’s close alignment with the Jewish state.
During his first trip to the region as vice president, Mr. Pence sought to enlist the help of Arab leaders in Egypt and Jordan on the Mideast peace process and used a high-profile speech to the Knesset to reaffirm President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital and accelerate plans to open a U.S. embassy in Jerusalem.
But Mr. Pence’s willingness to meet with Palestinian leaders — he told The Associated Press in an interview that the “door’s open” — was rebuffed by President Mahmoud Abbas, who canceled meetings last month and offered a not-so-subtle snub by overlapping with Mr. Pence in Jordan from Saturday evening until midday Sunday.
Several Arab lawmakers disrupted the start of Mr. Pence’s speech to the Knesset, holding signs that said, “Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine.”
A senior White House official told reporters Tuesday there has been no contact with the Palestinian leadership since Mr. Trump’s Jerusalem announcement Dec. 6.
“The United States has played a historic role in this region to pursue and promote peace, and I think the United States should continue to play a preeminent role,” Mr. Pence said Tuesday in an interview in Jerusalem. “But it’s going to require the Palestinians to return to the table.”
Much of Mr. Pence’s trip focused on working with U.S. partners to counter terrorism and make the case for persecuted Christian minorities in the Middle East. But shortly before Air Force Two departed Jerusalem, Mr. Abbas’ ruling Fatah party called for a general strike to protest Mr. Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital — another escalation after the Trump administration had raised hopes of a cooling-down period.
“The trip made zero progress in bringing the Palestinians back to the table,” Ilan Goldenberg, director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, wrote in an email. “In fact, it probably only hardened the Palestinian position.”
A senior White House official said top negotiators for the Trump administration, Jared Kushner, a senior adviser and the president’s son-in-law, and Jason Greenblatt, Mr. Trump’s special representative for international negotiations, had not spoken to Palestinian leaders since just before Mr. Trump’s Dec. 6 announcement. The official wasn’t authorized to describe private deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Mr. Trump’s announcement in December declaring Jerusalem to be Israel’s capital has created reverberations through the region and countered decades of U.S. foreign policy and international consensus that Jerusalem’s status should be decided in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Palestinians have pre-emptively rejected any peace proposal floated by the Trump administration amid concerns it would fall far below their hopes for an independent state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza, lands captured by Israel in the 1967 war.
Mr. Pence reiterated throughout his travels that the U.S. would accept a two-state solution — if both parties agreed — and would respect the status quo with regard to holy sites and make no determination on final status with regard to boundaries.