Trump Set to Become First Sitting U.S. President to Visit Western Wall
timesofisrael.com
Obama came as a candidate; George H.W. Bush as Veep; George W. before; Clinton before and after, but not during
As candidates, many US politicians stop by the Jerusalem holy site, but once in the White House, they’ve all stayed away
By Raphael Ahren May 15, 2017, 11:41 am
Donald Trump is slated to become the first incumbent US president to visit the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem.
George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all have visited the Jewish holy site, but either before or after their tenures as president.
“I don’t recall ever hearing of a sitting US president visiting the Western Wall,” said Shlomo Slonim, a professor emeritus of American history and the former chairman of Hebrew University’s Department of American Studies. Trump’s anticipated, but as of this writing unconfirmed, visit to the site would be “an innovation,” he added.
The White House has yet to publish the itinerary for Trump’s May 22-23 visit to Israel — the 11th presidential trip to the country since Richard Nixon came in 1974 — but according to sources involved in planning the trip, he is set to visit the Western Wall. If he indeed goes to the site, it would likely be interpreted by some as akin to an American recognition of Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem. (Despite some reports to the contrary, Trump has never visited Israel before.)
During the 1967 Six Day War, Israel captured the eastern part of Jerusalem, which until then had been under Jordanian administration. In 1980, Israel formally annexed East Jerusalem, which includes the Old City with the Western Wall, the Temple Mount, the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. So far, the entire international community has adamantly refused to recognize Israel’s claim to that part of the city, arguing that the final status of Jerusalem is subject to negotiations with the Palestinians.
It has been rumored in some quarters that Trump, on the occasion of his visit — which coincides with the week in which Israel celebrates the 50th anniversary of the city’s reunification — will recognize a united Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state. But, for now, that remains speculative.
During his election campaign, the former Manhattan real estate developer vowed emphatically to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, an act that would have been seen as tacit recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the city. “We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem,” Trump promised in an address at AIPAC’s annual policy conference in March 2016.
But that plan has since been put on the back burner. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Sunday that the president was still weighing whether such a move would help or hurt his efforts to relaunch Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
As a matter of standard diplomatic procedure, Western dignitaries usually do not visit the Old City and East Jerusalem in any official capacity. If they want to visit the Western Wall or other sites in that part of the city, they do so privately and without being accompanied by Israeli officials.
In recent years, however, an increasing number of foreign dignitaries have ignored this unwritten rule, especially leaders of African and East European countries. Polish prime minister Donald Tusk went to the Wall in 2008; President Vladimir Putin of Russia visited the site in 2012.
In 2013, then-Canadian foreign minister John Baird caused a diplomatic brouhaha when he visited Israel’s justice minister in her office on Salah al-Din Street in East Jerusalem. Although Baird asserted that his meeting didn’t “signal a change in Canadian foreign policy,” Palestinian officials were furious.
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