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Vice-President Mike Pence in Jerusalem amid Palestinian anger, Israeli embrace

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TEL AVIV: Vice-President Mike Pence was in Jerusalem on Monday, the first senior US official to visit the contested city since President Donald Trump sparked Palestinian protests and international condemnation by declaring it Israel’s capital.


Pence was welcomed by an honour guard as he arrived for a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He will address the Israeli parliament at 2:00 pm (1200 GMT), making him the first senior US official to do so since president George W Bush in 2008. The vice-president’s visit comes at a low-point in Washington’s relationship with the Palestinians.


Palestinians officials are boycotting Pence’s visit and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has insisted that the US is now disqualified from its decades-long role as the main mediator between Israelis and Palestinians.


Israelis meanwhile embraced Trump’s decision, with Netanyahu saying on Sunday that there is “no substitute for US leadership.”


Trump’s December 6 Jerusalem declaration outraged Palestinians, who saw the move as endorsing Israeli control of East Jerusalem, claimed by Palestinians as their future capital.


In the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Israel captured the eastern half of Jerusalem, now home to over 300,000 Palestinians, and later annexed the territory in a move that was not internationally recognised.


Deepening Palestinian resentment, Washington announced last week that it is withholding $65 million from the UN refugee agency responsible for Palestinians. Israeli Arab lawmakers are boycotting his Knesset speech in protest. Ayman Odeh, the leader of main Arab party, called Pence on Twitter “a dangerous racist whose presence here is only to harm any possibility of peace.”


Later on Monday, Pence and his wife Karen will have dinner with Netanyahu and his wife Sara at the prime minister’s residence.


On Tuesday, Pence will visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and the Western Wall, the holiest site for Jewish prayer. Pence’s two-day Israel visit is the last leg of regional tour, including stops in Jordan and Egypt.


Abbas is in Brussels on Monday where he will discuss efforts to restart the Middle East peace in a meeting with European Union foreign ministers. — dpa


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