CAIRO: US Vice President Mike Pence headed for Egypt Saturday to begin a Middle East trip overshadowed by anger in the Arab world over Washington’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Pence had been due to travel to the region in December but controversy over President Donald Trump’s decision to move the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem saw many planned meetings canceled.
While the deadly protests that erupted in the Palestinian territories at the time have subsided, concerns are mounting over the future of the UN aid agency for Palestinians (UNRWA).
Washington has frozen tens of millions of dollars of funding for the cash-strapped body, putting at risk operations to feed, teach and heal hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees.
The Palestinian leadership, already furious over the Jerusalem decision, has denounced the US administration and had already refused to meet Pence in December.
But the vice president’s press secretary, Alyssa Farah, said he would still meet the leaders of Egypt, Jordan and Israel on the high-stakes four-day tour.
Pence will arrive in Cairo on Saturday for talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi before traveling to Amman for a one-on-one meeting with King Abdullah II on Sunday.
The leaders of both countries, the only Arab states that have peace treaties with Israel, would be key players if US mediators ever manage to get a revived Israeli-Palestinian peace process off the ground, as Trump says he wants.
They are also key intelligence-sharing and security partners in America’s various covert and overt battles against Islamist extremism in the region and Egypt is a major recipient of aid to help it buy advanced US military hardware.
Sissi, one of Trump’s closest allies in the region, had urged the US president before his Jerusalem declaration “not to complicate the situation in the region by taking measures that jeopardize the chances of peace in the Middle East.”
Ahmed Al-Tayeb, the grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Egypt’s highest institution of Sunni Islam, canceled a meeting with Pence in protest at the Jerusalem decision.
The head of Egypt’s Coptic Church, Pope Tawadros II, did the same, saying Trump’s move “did not take into account the feelings of millions of Arab people.”
After Jordan — the custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem — Pence will head to Israel for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.
He will also deliver a speech to parliament and meet President Reuven Rivlin during the two-day visit.
Pence can expect a warm welcome after Trump’s decision on Jerusalem, which Israelis and Palestinians alike interpreted as Washington taking Israel’s side in the dispute over the city.
Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967 and later annexed east Jerusalem in a move never recognized by the international community.
Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its united capital, while the Palestinians see the eastern sector as the capital of their future state.
The international community considers east Jerusalem illegally occupied by Israel and currently all countries have their embassies in the commercial capital Tel Aviv.
The State Department has begun to plan the sensitive move of the US embassy to Jerusalem, a process that US diplomats say may take years to complete.
This week reports surfaced that Washington may temporarily designate the US consulate general in Jerusalem as the embassy while the search for a secure and practical site for a long-term mission continues.
This could prove just as controversial as building a new embassy, however, as the building currently serves as the US mission to the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
And the facility sits astride the “Green Line” that divides Jerusalem.
A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has yet to make a decision on either a permanent or interim location for the mission.
“That is a process that takes, anywhere in the world, time. Time for appropriate design, time for execution. It is a matter of years and not weeks or months,” he said.
Pence — himself a devout Christian — will visit the Western Wall, one of the holiest sites of Judaism in Jerusalem’s Old City, and pay his respects at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.
Pence heads to Mideast amid Arab anger over Jerusalem
Pence heads to Mideast amid Arab anger over Jerusalem
Lebanon hopes for neighborly relations in first message to new Syria government
- Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah played a major part propping up Syria’s ousted President Bashar Assad through years of war
- Syria’s new Islamist de-facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa is seeking to establish relations with Arab and Western leaders
DUBAI: Lebanon said on Thursday it was looking forward to having the best neighborly relations with Syria, in its first official message to the new administration in Damascus.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib passed the message to his Syrian counterpart, Asaad Hassan Al-Shibani, in a phone call, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry said on X.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah played a major part propping up Syria’s ousted President Bashar Assad through years of war, before bringing its fighters back to Lebanon over the last year to fight in a bruising war with Israel – a redeployment which weakened Syrian government lines.
Under Assad, Hezbollah used Syria to bring in weapons and other military equipment from Iran, through Iraq and Syria and into Lebanon. But on Dec. 6, anti-Assad fighters seized the border with Iraq and cut off that route, and two days later, Islamist militants captured the capital Damascus.
Syria’s new Islamist de-facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa is seeking to establish relations with Arab and Western leaders after toppling Assad.
Iraqi intelligence chief discusses border security with new Syrian administration
BAGHDAD: An Iraqi delegation met with Syria’s new rulers in Damascus on Thursday, an Iraqi government spokesman said, the latest diplomatic outreach more than two weeks after the fall of Bashar Assad’s rule.
The delegation, led by Iraqi intelligence chief Hamid Al-Shatri, “met with the new Syrian administration,” government spokesman Bassem Al-Awadi told state media, adding that the parties discussed “the developments in the Syrian arena, and security and stability needs on the two countries’ shared border.”
Israeli minister’s Al-Aqsa mosque visit sparks condemnation
- Ben Gvir has repeatedly defied the Israeli government’s longstanding ban on Jewish prayer at the site in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem
JERUSALEM: Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound on Thursday, triggering angry reactions from the Palestinian Authority and Jordan accusing the far-right politician of a deliberate provocation.
Ben Gvir has repeatedly defied the Israeli government’s longstanding ban on Jewish prayer at the site in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, which is revered by both Muslims and Jews and has been a focal point of tensions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“I went up to the site of our temple this morning to pray for the peace of our soldiers, the swift return of all hostages and a total victory, God willing,” Ben Gvir said in a message on social media platform X, referring to the Gaza war and the dozens of Israeli captives held in the Palestinian territory.
He also posted a photo of himself on the holy site, with members of the Israeli security forces and the famed golden Dome of the Rock in the background.
The Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem’s Old City is Islam’s third-holiest site and a symbol of Palestinian national identity.
Known to Jews as the Temple Mount, it is also Judaism’s holiest place, revered as the site of the second temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
Under the status quo maintained by Israel, which has occupied east Jerusalem and its Old City since 1967, Jews and other non-Muslims are allowed to visit the compound during specified hours, but they are not permitted to pray there or display religious symbols.
Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as their future capital, while Israeli leaders have insisted that the entire city is their “undivided” capital.
The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry said in a statement that it “condemns” Ben Gvir’s latest visit, calling his prayer at the site a “provocation to millions of Palestinians and Muslims.”
Jordan, which administers the mosque compound, similarly condemned what its foreign ministry called Ben Gvir’s “provocative and unacceptable” actions.
The ministry’s statement decried a “violation of the historical and legal status quo.”
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a brief statement that “the status quo on the Temple Mount has not changed.”
UN force sounds alarm over Israeli ‘destruction’ in south Lebanon
- Under the ceasefire agreement, UNIFIL peacekeepers and the Lebanese army were to redeploy in south Lebanon, near the Israeli border, as Israeli forces withdrew over 60 days
BEIRUT: The United Nations’ peacekeeping force in Lebanon expressed concern on Thursday at the “continuing” damage done by Israeli forces in the country’s south despite a ceasefire in the war with Hezbollah.
The truce went into effect on November 27, about two months after Israel stepped up its bombing campaign and later sent troops into Lebanon following nearly a year of exchanges of cross-border fire initiated by Hezbollah over the war in Gaza.
The warring sides have since traded accusations of violating the truce.
Under the ceasefire agreement, UNIFIL peacekeepers and the Lebanese army were to redeploy in south Lebanon, near the Israeli border, as Israeli forces withdrew over 60 days.
UNIFIL said in a statement on Thursday that “there is concern at continuing destruction by the IDF (army) in residential areas, agricultural land and road networks in south Lebanon.”
The statement added that “this is in violation of Resolution 1701,” which was adopted by the UN Security Council and ended the last Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006.
The UN force also reiterated its call for “the timely withdrawal” of Israeli troops from Lebanon, and “the full implementation of Resolution 1701.”
The resolution states that Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only forces in south Lebanon, where Hezbollah exerts control, and also calls for Israeli troops to withdraw from Lebanese territory.
“Any actions that risk the fragile cessation of hostilities must cease,” UNIFIL said.
On Monday the force had urged “accelerated progress” in the Israeli military’s withdrawal.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported on Thursday “extensive” operations by Israeli forces in the south.
It said residents of Qantara fled to a nearby village “following an incursion by Israeli enemy forces into their town.”
On Wednesday the NNA said Israeli aircraft struck the eastern Baalbek region, far from the border.
Syria forces carry out operation against pro-Assad ‘militias’: state media
- Operation had already succeeded in ‘neutralizing a certain number’ of armed men loyal to Assad
DUBAI: The new Syrian military administration announced on Thursday that it was launching a security operation in Tartous province, according to the Syrian state news agency.
The operation aims to maintain security in the region and target remnants of the Assad regime still operating in the area.
The announcement marks a significant move by the new administration as it consolidates its authority in the coastal province.
The operation had already succeeded in “neutralizing a certain number” of armed men loyal to toppled president Bashar Assad, state news agency SANA reported said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor has reported several arrests in connection with Wednesday’s clashes.
Further details about the scope or duration of the operation have not yet been disclosed.
