The US vice president Mike Pence today visited Jerusalem's Western Wall, the world's holiest prayer site for Jews, as his support for Israel and his form of 'Christian Zionism' was lambasted as a 'sick ideology' by Palestinian Christians.
Pence, an evangelical Christian who yesterday addressed the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, in a speech containing a number of biblical references, was joined at the Western Wall in the Old City by a rabbi and another religious leader. Wearing a Jewish kippah or skullcap on his head, he then approached the wall and placed a small white note of prayer in its cracks, as is customary. Standing solemnly, Pence then held his right hand on the wall momentarily, his eyes closed.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Christians were reported by the news outlet Israel Hayom as rejecting Pence's brand of evangelical Christianity.
'For me, it's a sick ideology,' said Munib Younan, the recently retired bishop of the small Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land and former president of the Lutheran World Federation, an umbrella group for churches with millions of believers.
'When I say Jesus is love, they want my Jesus to be a political Jesus,' said Younan, 67, a Jerusalem-born Palestinian, said in an interview at his West Bank church.
In Bethlehem, the city's Catholic Mayor Anton Salman said Pence's comments contradict his declared aim of helping Christians in the Middle East.
'He would need to change his thoughts and behaviour...and recognise the rights of Arab Palestinian Christians who are the people of this land, to support their rights to have their independence, their freedom and east Jerusalem as our capital,' said Salman.
Also today, Pence said the timing of a long-awaited US Middle East peace initiative depends on the return of Palestinians to negotiations.
Palestinians ruled out Washington as a peace broker after Donald Trump's December 6 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
'The White House has been working with our partners in the region to see if we can develop a framework for peace,' Pence told Reuters in an interview in Jerusalem on the last leg of his three-day Middle East trip. 'It all just depends now on when the Palestinians are going to come back to the table.'
Trump's Jerusalem move angered the Palestinians, sparked protests in the Middle East and raised concern among Western countries that it could further destabilise the region.
Pence said he and the president believed the decision, under which the US also plans to move its embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, would improve peacemaking prospects.
Pence discussed the Jerusalem issue during talks with Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Saturday and Jordan's King Abdullah on Sunday. He said the two leaders had agreed to convey to the Palestinians that the US was eager to resume peace talks.
'We want them [the Palestinians] to know the door is open. We understand they're unhappy with that decision but the president wanted me to convey our willingness and desire to be a part of the peace process going forward,' Pence said.
Pence said the US State Department would spell out details in the coming weeks about a plan to move the US embassy to Jerusalem by the end of 2019.
Israeli media have speculated that a 2019 embassy move could help Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu win re-election in a vote scheduled for November of that year.
Asked if he hoped for Netanyahu's reelection, Pence told Reuters: 'I'm a strong supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu, but I don't get a vote here.'
Pence also visited the Holocaust memorial museum Yad Vashem and the president of Israel, Reuven Rivlin.
In Gaza meanwhile, the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said today that Pence's tour in Israel was 'unwelcome,' adding that his speech at the Knesset 'proves the USA has a strategic alliance with the Zionist entity'.
The US 'doesn't take the interests and requirements of the Islamic and Arab nation into consideration,' Haniyeh said in a televised speech from Gaza.
Haniyeh accused the Trump administration of targeting 'the principles of the Palestinian cause' by recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital and cutting funds to UNRWA, the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinians refugees and their descendants.
Additional reporting by Reuters.
