U.S. Vice President Mike Pence continued his tour of the region on Sunday, meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah in Amman, a day after visiting Egypt.
Pence was scheduled to arrive in Israel on Sunday evening and head to Jerusalem. On Monday morning, he will address the Knesset as well as meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin and lay a wreath at a memorial for Israel's fallen soldiers. He will also have a private dinner with Netanyahu and his wife, Sara. On Tuesday, Pence will visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem.
The meeting in Jordan on Sunday was expected to deal with the Trump administration's Dec. 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and the plan to shift the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Following his meeting with Egypt's President President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on Saturday, Pence emphasized the U.S. commitment to the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority.
Pence said he had assured el-Sissi the U.S. is committed to "preserving the status quo with regard to holy sites in Jerusalem." Pence also stressed that boundaries and other issues would be negotiated between the parties.
Speaking on Saturday before leaving Egypt for Jordan, Pence said, "I hope that my message here with President el-Sissi and in Jordan tomorrow and in Israel will make it clear that, while the American people and the American president have stated that we recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, we are ready now to move forward, to resolve longstanding issues and finally bring this decades-old conflict to an end. The United States of America is deeply committed to restarting the peace process in the Middle East."
Pence and el-Sissi held spoke for two and a half hours at the presidential palace in Cairo, acknowledging the friendship and partnership between the two countries. Through a translator, Pence listened as el-Sissi cited the need to address "urgent issues," including "ways to eliminate this disease and cancer that has terrified the whole world."
In a statement, el-Sissi noted that only negotiations based on a two-state solution could bring an end to the conflict, "and Egypt would spare no effort to support this."
Ahead of his arrival in Jordan, several dozen Jordanians gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Amman, protesting against U.S. policies in the Middle East.
"America is the head of the snake," they chanted. Some held up banners reading: "The envoy of the Zionist American right-wing [Pence] is not welcome."
Pence is not scheduled to meet Palestinian leaders, who are still angry over Trump's decision on Jerusalem. The Joint Arab List, a Knesset faction comprising the predominantly Arab parties, said it would boycott his speech at the Knesset.
"He is a dangerous person who has a messianic vision that includes the destruction of the entire region," Joint Arab List leader Ayman Odeh tweeted on Saturday. "He has arrived as the representative of a more dangerous person, a political pyromaniac, a racist and a misogynist, who should not set the path of our region."
Meanwhile, according to a New York Times report from Thursday, the Trump administration "is moving faster than expected to transfer the American Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv by 2019." The report is based on senior officials in the administration. According to the plan, even though the scouting and relocation to a new site is expected to last several years, the U.S. ambassador will start working from a U.S. consular building in Jerusalem as soon as it is properly set up to handle classified information.
A senior State Department official said on Friday said there are two dimensions to the embassy issue.
"One is the construction of an appropriate, permanent embassy. That is a process that takes, anywhere in the world, time ... but the other aspect of this is, is it possible to have an interim facility which meets all of the overseas security and functionality requirements – safety, security, function – for our personnel? Can that be done on a shorter time frame than a permanent construction project? And the decisions with respect to that second course – the interim facility – are with the secretary, [and] have not yet been taken," the official said.
