Pence’s Mideast trip shrinks after Trump’s Jerusalem declaration

Bloomberg

Vice President Mike Pence will seek to show on a trip to the Mideast 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, despite Trump’s Jerusalem announcement — 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 vice president and he will not visit Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank — a particularly meaningful stop for the evangelical Christian vice president. He’ll also spend less time on the ground in Egypt than once envisioned, with a trip to the Pyramids of Giza and a meeting with the leader of Coptic Christians off his itinerary.
The trip has been delayed, and truncated, to keep Pence in Washington in case his tie-breaking vote is needed to pass tax legislation in the Senate. Pence knew as he planned his trip that it was possible 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.
Instead, he’s being snubbed. “The Palestinian position is clear: the vice president is not welcome here and there will be no meeting with him, after Trump’s decision,” said Wasel Abu Youssef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s policy-making executive committee. “There is no talk with the US side about the peace process if the US administration does not retreat from President Trump’s decisions about Jerusalem. Their role as a mediator is done.”
Trump’s Mideast envoy, Jason Greenblatt, will return to the region next Monday ahead of Pence’s trip, an administration official said.
A US-led process is the only
way forward to an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal and Trump
remains committed to that goal, the official said.
Pence was one of the foremost proponents in the Trump administration for a declaration that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and the relocation of the US embassy. His argument bested those of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis, both of whom opposed the idea, according to people familiar with the internal debate. The vice president stood stoically behind Trump’s right shoulder as he made his televised announcement, an unmistakable signal to the president’s evangelical supporters.
Pence’s four-day trip to the region will begin on Tuesday, a few days later than initially planned in order to accommodate the US Senate, which may vote on a tax overhaul earlier that day. He’ll stop in Egypt, Israel, and finally at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany for a holiday visit with US service members, according to the vice president’s office.