Laura Bush Heckled on Holy Land Visit

Jewish and Arab protesters gave the US first lady, Laura Bush, a hostile reception as she toured religious sites in the Holy Land yesterday.

As she arrived at Jerusalem's Wailing Wall, Mrs Bush was met by Israelis demanding the release from prison of Jonathan Pollard, an American Jew who has served 20 years of a life sentence in the US for spying for Israel.

The first lady pushed a note into the wall, believed to be a means of directly communicating with God, at Judaism's holiest shrine.

At the neighbouring Dome of the Rock, she was met by a small group of Muslim protesters who were kept at bay by a tight cordon of US secret service agents.

"You are not welcome here," one Palestinian shouted as Mrs Bush entered the mosque. "Why are you hassling our Muslims? How dare you come in here?"

Mrs Bush's tour is interpreted in the region as an attempt to soften criticism of the US among Arabs. She said yesterday's reception was a reminder to her of "what an emotional place this is as we go from each one of these very, very holy sites to the next".

Later, Mrs Bush travelled to the West Bank town of Jericho where she visited the ruins of the eighth-century Hisham's palace, which was destroyed by an earthquake shortly after its construction.

She also met influential Palestinian women at a local hotel who described some of the difficulties of life under occupation.

"We're reminded again of what every one of us would want," Mrs Bush said afterwards. "What we all want is peace and the chance that we have right now to have peace, to have a Palestinian state living by a secure state of Israel, both living in democracy, is as close as we've been in a really long time."