Jerusalem has been described as the volcanic core of the Middle East, a locale where competing and seemingly irreconcilable religious and historic narratives vie for supremacy and where Jews, Muslims and Christians co-exist side by side in a never ending struggle for survival. This is a maelstrom which has taxed the best foreign policy talents of previous administrations, and into this turbulent quicksand Donald Trump has sent Jared Kushner, who was stared at in stunned silence by leaders of all denominations when he spoke, and most recently Mike Pence. Pence was fileted on twitter today by Daniel Seidemann, founder of a non governmental organization, Terrestrial Jerusalem, which tracks political events, for his recent visit which took on the ambience of a tent revival more than a state visit.
Pence’s visit was reported by local media outlets as the travesty it was. Pence’s speech was zero diplomacy, 100% revival meeting.
The speech by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence in the Knesset Monday afternoon was more like an ecstatic sermon by an evangelist preacher traveling through the Holy Land than the address of a leader seeking to present a new diplomatic plan for Middle East peace.
The vice president, who as we know is a devout Christian, divided the world in his speech into good and evil, friends and enemies, heaven and hell. On one side is the Jewish people, the chosen people, to whom God promised this land. No less important is that in the evangelical Christian worldview, the return of the Jewish people to its promised land is necessary to expedite Judgment Day and the return of Jesus. So if the infidels, who, what can you do, includes Jews, do not accept the yoke of his kingdom, the end will be less than heartwarming and probably wouldn’t receive thunderous applause in the plenum.
Pence is doing a fundamentalist Christian overlay on affairs of state in the Middle East and all that he achieved in Jerusalem was to confirm America’s exit from the Middle East peace process and to proclaim himself as Horseman of the Trumpocalypse.