US first lady Laura Bush today brushed aside protests by Jews and Muslims during her visit to the Holy Land.
She said the protests did not undercut the efforts of her tour to promote goodwill.
"We all know this is a place of very high tensions and high emotions, and you can understand why," she told reporters after touring the 12th-century Church of the Resurrection outside Jerusalem before flying out to Cairo.
She denied being caught off guard by protesters who jostled and harangued her yesterday at holy sites in Jerusalem's walled Old City.
"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 in the village of Abu Ghosh. "Everyone knows how the tensions are and I believe I was very, very welcomed by most people."
The calm that greeted her visit to Abu Ghosh, a mostly Arab Israeli village where she was treated to a church choir performance, contrasted sharply with her foray the day before to holy sites at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A small crowd of Muslims, some shouting, pressed in on her as she entered Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock mosque, and Israeli police and US Secret Service agents formed a tight cordon around her to push them back.
Shortly before visiting the mosque, Mrs Bush appeared at the adjacent ancient Western Wall and was confronted by dozens of nationalist Jews demanding Washington free convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.
The shrine compound visited by Mrs Bush is known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif ("Noble Sanctuary") and to Jews as Temple Mount. It has been a frequent venue of violence rooted in conflicting Israeli and Palestinian claims to sovereignty over the site.