Trump to Visit Jewish, Christian Holy Sites in Jerusalem

President Donald Trump arrives aboard Air Force One at JFK International Airport in New York on May 4, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump will visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, the White House said on Monday amid controversy in Israel over reported comments by a U.S. diplomat that the wall was in the occupied West Bank.

Trump will say a prayer at the Western Wall, national security adviser H.R. McMaster said, as well as pay a visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, considered by Christians to be the site of Jesus’ tomb.

The wall, representing the remains of the Jewish Second Temple, sits on territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and has been a flashpoint of violence in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Israel will be the second stop on Trump’s first foreign trip, following Saudi Arabia. The Republican president will meet with Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

New US ambassador to Israel David Friedman prays at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray, in the old city of Jerusalem on May 15, 2017.
MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images