US Vice President Mike Pence has delayed his trip to the Middle East to help shore up votes for the Republican tax bill. His decision came amid an uproar over Washington's plan to designate Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
Image: Reuters/J. Roberts
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Vice President Mike Pence will delay a controversial trip to Israel and Egypt to stay in Washington and help pass sweeping tax reforms later this week, the White House announced Monday.
Pence had been due to leave on Saturday to meet with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following an internationally-condemned decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
But uncertainty over the upcoming tax vote prompted Pence to delay the trip until mid January, officials said.
Razor-thin margin
"The vice president is committed to seeing the tax cut through to the finish line," said Alyssa Farah, Pence's press secretary, in a statement.
Republicans are expected to pass the tax bill in the Senate with a razor-thin margin on either Tuesday or Wednesday amid unified Democratic opposition. But they can only afford to lose two votes.
Republican Senator John McCain is at home battling brain cancer and will miss the vote, while 80-year-old Senator Thad Cochran missed votes last week, also for health issues.
Jerusalem decision
Pence's decision to postpone the trip to Egypt came hours after the US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that effectively condemned the US decision on Jerusalem.
The resolution, which was submitted by Egypt and passed by all members except the US, criticized decisions that sought to alter "the character, status or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem" and called for them to be rescinded, but stopped short of explicitly naming President Donald Trump and the US.
Pence was also facing pushback on his Middle East trip, with deep criticism in Egypt and with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas refusing to meet with him following Trump's decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem.
City of strife: Jerusalem's complex history
Jerusalem is one of the oldest and most contested cities in the world. Jerusalem is revered as a sacred city by Jews, Muslims and Christians alike. For this reason, there has been controversy over the city to this day.
Image: picture-alliance/Zumapress/S. Qaq
Jerusalem, the city of David
According to the Old Testament, David, king of the two partial kingdoms of Judah and Israel, won Jerusalem from the Jebusites around 1000 BC. He moved his seat of government to Jerusalem, making it the capital and religious center of his kingdom. The Bible says David's son Solomon built the first temple for Yahweh, the God of Israel. Jerusalem became the center of Judaism.
Image: Imago/Leemage
Under Persian rule
The Neo-Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II (3rd from the left) conquered Jerusalem in 597 and again in 586 BC, as the Bible says. He took King Jehoiakim (5th from the right) and the Jewish upper class into captivity, sent them to Babylon and destroyed the temple. After Persian king Cyrus the Great seized Babylon, he allowed the exiled Jews to return home to Jerusalem and to rebuild their temple.
The Roman Empire ruled Jerusalem from the year 63 AD. Resistance movements rapidly formed among the population, so that in 66 AD, the First Jewish–Roman War broke out. The war ended 4 years later, with a Roman victory and another destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. The Romans and Byzantines ruled Palestine for approximately 600 years.
Image: Historical Picture Archive/COR
Conquest by the Arabs
Over the course of the Islamic conquest of Greater Syria, Muslim armies also reached Palestine. By order of the Caliph Umar (in the picture), Jerusalem was besieged and captured in the year 637 AD. In the following era of Muslim rule, various, mutually hostile and religiously divided rulers presided over the city. Jerusalem was often besieged and changed hands several times.
Image: Selva/Leemage
The Crusades
From 1070 AD onward, the Muslim Seljuk rulers increasingly threatened the Christian world. Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade, which took Jerusalem in 1099 AD. Over a period of 200 years a total of nine crusades set out to conquer the city as it changed hands between Muslim and Christian rule. In 1244 AD the crusaders finally lost control of the city and it once again became Muslim.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
The Ottomans and the British
After the conquest of Egypt and Arabia by the Ottomans, Jerusalem became the seat of an Ottoman administrative district in 1535 AD. In its first decades of Ottoman rule, the city saw a clear revival. With a British victory over Ottoman troops in 1917 AD, Palestine fell under British rule. Jerusalem went to the British without a fight.
Image: Gemeinfrei
The divided city
After World War II, the British gave up their Palestinian Mandate. The UN voted for a division of the country in order to create a home for the survivors of the Holocaust. Some Arab states then went to war against Israel and conquered part of Jerusalem. Until 1967, the city was divided into an Israeli west and a Jordanian east.
Image: Gemeinfrei
East Jerusalem goes back to Israel
In 1967, Israel waged the Six-Day War against Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Israel took control of the Sinai, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. Israeli paratroopers gained access to the Old City and stood at the Wailing Wall for the first time since 1949. East Jerusalem is not officially annexed, but rather integrated into the administration.
Israel has not denied Muslims access to its holy places. The Temple Mount is under an autonomous Muslim administration; Muslims can enter, visit the Dome of the Rock and the adjacent Al-Aqsa mosque and pray there.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/A. Gharabli
Unresolved status
Jerusalem remains to this day an obstacle to peace between Israel and Palestine. In 1980, Israel declared the whole city its "eternal and indivisible capital." After Jordan gave up its claim to the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1988, the state of Palestine was proclaimed. Palestine also declares, in theory, Jerusalem as its capital.
