US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accompanied Israel’s prime minister on a visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City on Thursday, in the first such gesture since Washington recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, angering Palestinians, Reuters reports.
The ancient Western Wall, the most sacred prayer site in Judaism, is located in the eastern part of the city that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed in a move not recognized internationally.
An incredible privilege to pray with people from around the world at the Western Wall. May all of our appeals for peace be granted. pic.twitter.com/GUp9GOCWzz
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) March 22, 2019
Israel has long considered all of Jerusalem as its eternal, indivisible capital, while Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state they seek in territory Israel took in the June 1967 war.
Shortly after entering office in January 2017, US President Donald Trump visited the Western Wall, though without Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Later that year Trump reversed decades of US policy and officially recognized Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, though making clear that he was not prejudging a settlement on where the city’s borders should be.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo touches Jerusalem's Western Wall amid his Mideast trip urging action against Iran. https://t.co/pk5I2b3NOL pic.twitter.com/NpvdkcWq9n
— ABC News (@ABC) March 21, 2019
Since that shift, the US ambassador to Israel has paid visits to the Western Wall along with Netanyahu. Pompeo suggested that his own visit as the top US diplomat in Netanyahu’s presence was significant.
“I think it’s symbolic that a senior American official goes there with the prime minister of Israel,” he told reporters prior to arriving in the walled Old City.
The Western Wall is a remnant of the compound of a Jewish temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. The elevated plaza above it is the Noble Sanctuary, the third holiest site in Islam, containing the al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
Pompeo, Netanyahu and US Ambassador David Friedman together approached the wall and each leaned against its massive stones with one hand. Pompeo then placed a prayer note in between the stones, as is customary.
Sec State Pompeo and Netanyahu visit Western Wall in Jerusalem … place prayers in Wall…. pic.twitter.com/quamKU0qVm
— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) March 21, 2019
Before going to the wall, he visited the nearby Church of the Holy Sepulchre, believed to be the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial.
Pompeo, now on a Middle East tour, visited Kuwait before Israel and is due to proceed to Lebanon. His trip to Israel, three weeks before a closely contested election, was portrayed in local media as a Trump administration boost for the right-wing Netanyahu.
(MEMO, PC, Social Media)
