Vice President Mike Pence prayed at the Western Wall in Jerusalem Tuesday and met with Israel’s president, as Palestinians renewed their protests over President Trump’s decision to recognize the ancient city as the Israeli capital.
Vice President Mike Pence prayed at the Western Wall in Jerusalem Tuesday and met with Israel’s president, as Palestinians renewed their protests over President Trump’s decision to recognize the ancient city as the Israeli capital.
Wearing a Jewish skullcap, Mr. Pence quietly approached the wall that is the holiest site where Jews can pray and placed a small white note of prayer in its cracks. With eyes closed, he held his right hand on the wall momentarily.
The vice president was accompanied by Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, the rabbi of the wall, and Mordechai “Suli” Elias, the director general of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation. Mr. Trump also prayed at the wall last year.
The visit to the wall, on Mr. Pence’s final day in the Middle East, followed weeks of strained relations with the Palestinians, who have assailed the Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. During the vice president’s two-day visit to Israel, he has repeatedly referred to Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and announced plans to speed up the timing of the opening of the U. S. Embassy in Jerusalem — moving it from Tel Aviv — by the end of 2019.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has refused to meet with Mr. Pence, and his ruling Fatah party called for a general strike to protest Mr. Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The strike is meant to include shops, public transportation, banks and most of the public sector aside from schools and hospitals.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem to become their capital in any two-state solution.
During a visit with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, Mr. Pence said that Mr. Trump believes his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel “will set the table for the opportunity to move forward in meaningful negotiations.”
“It is deeply meaningful to me to be ale to be with you here, here in Jerusalem, the capital of the state of Israel,” he told Mr. Rivlin.
The Israeli president told Mr. Pence, “We appreciate very much what you have done for the Jewish people.”
The vice president also said the U. S. and Israel “stand together against the leading state sponsor of terror, Iran.” He brought up the Iranian nuclear deal, saying the administration wants to revise it to ensure that “punitive sanctions will be available for many years to come to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”
“We are sending a signal to our European allies that the time has come for changes in the Iran nuclear deal,” Mr. Pence said. “If our allies won’t join us, President Trump has made clear we will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal immediately. But we hope, we hope in the months ahead to be able to strengthen it.”
Mr. Pence and his wife, Karen, also visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. They walked among the displays with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, listening as guides described the site commemorating 6 million Jews killed during the Holocaust.
The vice president wrote the following inscription in the guest book: “Here at Yad Vashem we mourn for the six million Jewish martyrs of the Holocaust, and we draw inspiration from the faith and resilience that rose from such times.”
The vice president is scheduled to return to the U. S. early Wednesday.
