Protesters surround Laura Bush at Jerusalem mosque
First lady whisked away as emotions grow tense
Monday, May 23, 2005 Posted: 4:46 AM EDT (0846 GMT)
 |  Laura Bush visits Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock amid protests Sunday. |
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|  VIDEO |
 Chaotic scene as Laura Bush is met by protesters in Jerusalem.
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JERUSALEM
(CNN) -- First lady Laura Bush, on a political fence-mending tour of
the Middle East, found herself the target of a tense protest in
Jerusalem at one of Islam's holiest sites.
After a brief tour
of the Dome of the Rock mosque, about 40 or 50 protesters surrounded
Bush and her U.S. Secret Service detail as they departed, pushing to
get closer and shouting: "How dare you come here" and "You don't belong
in this mosque."
Security closed in tightly around the first lady
as the angry Muslim protesters -- many expressing fury at the United
States -- came very close to Bush.
As Secret Service agents
shadowed her, Israeli security guards linked arms and forced a pathway
for the first lady's entourage through the crowd to Bush's motorcade.
At one point, a boy made his way up to the first lady, and one guard momentarily pointed his gun at the boy, who ran away.
During a visit to the Church of the Resurrection on Monday Bush said she was not surprised by the protesters.
"The
protests were very expected. If you didn't expect them, you didn't know
what it would be like when you got here," Bush said.
"Everyone knows how the tensions are and ... I was very, very welcomed by most people."
Videotape
of the incident shows Bush appearing unperturbed by her surroundings
and chatting amiably with officials as they move away from the mosque.
Once down off the hill, Secret Service agents whisked the first lady into her limousine, which departed for her next stop.
The
site she visited on Sunday is Islam's third-holiest, and is built on a
hill in Jerusalem known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as
the Haram al-Sharif -- or the Noble Sanctuary. The hill also is
believed to contain the ruins of Judaism's holiest temple.
Not far from the mosque, protesters forced Bush into another tight squeeze earlier Sunday at Judaism's holy Western Wall.
While
the first lady passed through a narrow walkway set up for her to reach
the wall, dozens of protesters pushed against Bush's guards.
The demonstrators demanded the release of Jonathan Pollard, an American imprisoned for passing security information to Israel. (Related story)
Secret
Service spokesman Jonathan Cherry said in a statement there was
"nothing out of the ordinary regarding the first lady's trip overseas."
Speaking
to reporters later in Jericho, Bush said, "As you can tell from our day
here, this is a place of emotion, everywhere we went, from the Western
Wall to the Dome of the Rock to here.
"This is such a crucial
point in our world and has been for forever, really," she said. "We're
reminded again of what we all want, what every one of us prays for."
She said the Israeli and Palestinian women she met with Sunday wanted peace, and that both sides must come to the table.
"The
chance that we have right now to have peace, to have a Palestinian
state living by a secure and safe Israel, both living in democracy, is
as close as we've been in a really long time," she said.
She continued, "The United States will do what they can in this process."
Bush said that as a Christian it was "very emotional and very moving to be here to see these sites."
CNN's Suzanne Malveaux contributed to this report.
