U.S. Vice President Mike Pence made a significant visit to Tel Aviv last week, marking his first trip to Israel since the conflict with Hamas erupted on October 7th with a deadly incursion into Israeli border towns.
While U.S. President Joe Biden and various members of Congress, both from the Republican and Democratic parties, have visited Israel in the past three months, Pence’s visit stands out as the highest-profile Republican visit since October 7th. As a devout pro-Israel Christian, he is also the most prominent Evangelical figure to visit Israel during this ongoing conflict.
During his visit on Thursday, Pence toured several key locations, including the town of Sderot, Kibbutz Kfar Azza, the site of the tragic Nova music festival massacre in Re’im, and the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon.
“In this challenging time, I wanted to play my part in ensuring that the people of Israel understand that the United States stands in solidarity with them,” Pence remarked, according to the Times of Israel.
Addressing the International Court of Justice hearing on Israel’s alleged “genocide,” Pence stated, “Israel and the United States should strongly oppose any attempt to use the International Court of Justice or the United Nations to equate Hamas’ unprovoked genocidal attack on the Jewish people with Israel’s actions in self-defense.”
Pence was accompanied on his visit by Israel’s Speaker of the Knesset, Amir Ohana, who belongs to the Likud party.
Notably, just last week, Joel C. Rosenberg, co-founder of All Israel News, and his wife, Lynn, organized a Solidarity Mission involving Evangelical leaders in Israel. The delegation included former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, former Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Commission Ken Blackwell, Calvary Albuquerque Senior Pastor Skip Heitzig, and his wife, Lenya.
The planning and discussions for Pence’s trip began shortly after he withdrew from the 2024 presidential campaign during a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition on October 28th.
Pence’s last visit to Israel took place in January 2020, during which he delivered a speech at the Fifth World Holocaust Forum held at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem.
