Laura Bush 'expected' angry protests on Middle East visit
US First Lady Laura Bush said today she was not surprised to be met by protesters during her tour of Mideast holy sites and pledged the United States will do all it can to help resolve age-old conflicts.
“As we all know, this is a place of very high tensions and high emotions,” the first lady said while standing in the garden courtyard of the Church of the Resurrection. “And you can understand why when you see the people with a deep and sincere faith in their religion all living side by side.”
Mrs Bush said the protesters who heckled her during Sunday’s visits to the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall did not surprise her and she denied that they overshadowed her goodwill visit.
“I think the protests were very expected. If you didn’t expect them, you didn’t know what it would be like when you got here,” she said. “Everyone knows how the tensions are and, believe me, I was very, very welcomed by most people.”
Mrs Bush was visiting sites sacred to all three major religions born in the region, winding up with a stop today at the Church of the Resurrection at Abu Ghosh, a predominantly Muslim town where some believe Jesus appeared at Easter.
“I think that Abu Ghosh, as we leave Israel, can show us what it’s like when the people of three religions that have so many holy sites here in the Holy Land indeed can live in peace with each other,” she said. The first lady was heading to Cairo later.
The peaceful visit was in contrast to her stops at sites sacred to Muslims and Jews on Sunday.
At the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest shrine, protesters demanded that the US release Jonathan Pollard, a Jewish American imprisoned for spying for Israel. During a visit to the Dome of the Rock, she faced heckling from angry Palestinians. One man yelled, “How dare you come in here! Why your husband kill Muslim?”
Mrs Bush’s five-day visit to the Middle East, which also included stops in Jordan and Egypt, was intended partly to help defuse anti-American sentiment in the region.
