Speaking on penultimate day of visit to region, archbishop of Canterbury says US president has ‘capacity to make a difference’

Donald Trump and his team could tip the scales in favour of Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects when they arrive in Jerusalem in less than two weeks, the archbishop of Canterbury has said.

Speaking on the penultimate day of his 12-day tour of the region, Justin Welby said: “We know from history in this region that determined leadership by the president of the United States, together with patient working by lots of other people in the background, often unknown, can tip things very, very decisively.”



Justin Welby: 'moment of opportunity' near in Middle East conflict Read more

He said: “People have lots of views about President Trump but when he comes here my prayer for him is that he will be filled with determination and courage and be given gifts of wisdom that will make a difference.



“His office has the capacity to make a difference. It’s one of the very few offices in the world outside this region that does. And so we pray for him to be able to do that.”



Welby has discussed the US president’s imminent visit with both the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in separate meetings this week. After the meetings the archbishop said a moment of opportunity could be within reach, adding that “internationally, perhaps, the planets are aligning”.



At a press conference at the St John’s eye hospital in Jerusalem’s Old City, he repeated his hope for such a moment if there was “sufficient determination from everyone involved and external help”. Conflict resolution, he added, was not centred on “events, but lengthy processes that often last for generations”.



Trump is expected in Jerusalem on 22 May as part of his first foreign tour since his inauguration, although the date has not been officially confirmed.

Earlier, Welby visited Hebron, the West Bank city often cited as a microcosm of the conflict, where a few hundred hardline settlers live under the protection of about 1,500 Israeli soldiers amid extreme tension and frequent violence.



With a heavy security detail, Welby and Suheil Dawani, the Anglican archbishop of Jerusalem, visited the edifice in the heart of Hebron which is home to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, revered by Jews, and the Ibrahimi mosque, a holy site for Muslims.



Welby tucked a large silver crucifix around his neck inside his cassock during the separate visits as a gesture of respect to other faiths. At the mosque, he removed his shoes; at the tomb he wore a kippah.



As he left the tomb, he stopped to speak to Michael Lixenberg, originally from north London but now living in Hebron, who spoke of the Jewish presence in the city stretching back centuries, and the settlers’ determination to remain close to the tomb and other sites of religious significance. The two archbishops walked along Shuhada Street, once the bustling commercial centre of Hebron, which now resembles a ghost town. Armed soldiers watched as the entourage passed shuttered shops and military watchtowers in the area of the city known as H2, under Israeli military control.

At the Jerusalem press conference, Welby said: “You would have to be hard-hearted to go to Hebron and not come away with a sense of being overwhelmed by the extent of the problems … When you see the depths of those divisions, it does bear down on one.”

He also visited a Bedouin community at Susiya in the south Hebron Hills, where Nasser al-Nawaja’a told him the village had been repeatedly demolished by the Israeli military and that they were forced to bring in water by truck at seven times the cost of the supply to nearby settlers.

On Thursday, the archbishop is visiting the Peres Centre for Peace and Innovation in Jaffa, where he will meet young Jews, Muslims and Christians, before returning to the UK.

