Laura Bush heckled in Jerusalem shrine visit

Jewish and Muslim protesters heckled US first lady Laura Bush when she visited a flashpoint Jerusalem shrine yesterday during a Middle East goodwill tour.

Dozens of nationalist Jews demanding Washington free convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard shouted and waved placards at Ms Bush at the ancient Western Wall. They were kept back by Israeli police and US Secret Service agents.

She inserted a small handwritten note in a cleft of the wall and paused there for about 60 seconds before returning to her heavily-guarded motorcade for the short trip to the adjacent Dome of the Rock mosque.

A crowd jostled Ms Bush as she entered the mosque and a Palestinian worshipper cried at her: "You are not welcome here. Why are you hassling our Muslims? How dare you come in here?"

Ms Bush did not respond to him or an old woman inside the mosque who shouted "Koran, Koran" at her in Arabic.

Ms Bush, dressed in a black pantsuit, with black headscarf donned in religious respect and held tightly on her head, exited with police linking arms around her to ward off onlookers.

She began a Middle East trip on Friday acknowledging that the US image in the Muslim world had been badly damaged by a prisoner abuse scandal and a magazine report, since retracted, that US interrogators desecrated the Koran.

The disturbances during her trip to the Jerusalem holy site showed "what an emotional place this is as we go from each one of these very very holy spots to the next," Bush said later during a stop in the West Bank biblical oasis town of Jericho.

"We're reminded again of what we all want, what every one of us prays for... what we all want is peace," she said.

Ms Bush said the chance of achieving that "right now... is as close as we've been in a really long time. It will take a lot of baby steps and I'm sure (there) will be a few steps backward on the way..."

US President George W. Bush hopes to revive a "road map" plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace after the January election of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who engineered a ceasefire after four-and-a-half years of bloodshed.

"The United States will do what they can in this process," said Ms Bush. "It also requires the work of the people here, of the Palestinians and the Israelis, to come to the table."

Ms Bush's stops were the first time on her five-day trip, which has so far taken her to the Jordanian capital Amman and the Dead Sea, that she faced protesters.

"We neither welcome nor reject her visit. We have no stance," said Ikrima Sabri, the Muslim grand mufti of Jerusalem.

"We do object to the heavy Israeli security in order to give the impression to the visitor that Jerusalem is under Israeli sovereignty," Mr Sabri told Reuters.

Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem, including the Old City, along with the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Middle East war. Palestinians want all three areas for a future state.