First Lady Heckled at Holy Sites in Jerusalem

Protesters jostled and harangued First Lady Laura Bush on Sunday when she visited a Jerusalem shrine at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“How dare you come in here! Why your husband kill Muslims?” one protester shouted at the first lady at the Dome of the Rock mosque as Israeli police and U.S. Secret Service agents formed a tight cordon around her. For Bush, on a Middle East goodwill tour, it was a rare, close encounter with hostile demonstrators.

A small crowd of people pressed around Bush as she entered the mosque in Jerusalem’s walled Old City. One worshiper cried out, “None of you belong in here!”

The first lady, who later made an appeal for peace, did not respond to him or to an old woman in the mosque who shouted “Koran! Koran!” at her, an apparent reference to allegations that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, desecrated Islam’s holy book.

Bush, dressed in a black pantsuit and black head scarf, exited with police linking arms around her.

Bush began her Middle East trip Friday acknowledging that the U.S. image in the Muslim world had been badly damaged by a prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq and the allegations of Koran desecration.

Shortly before visiting the mosque, she appeared at the adjacent ancient Western Wall and was confronted by dozens of nationalist Jews demanding that Washington free convicted Jonathan Pollard, a U.S. analyst who sold secrets to Israel. They shouted and waved placards.

Later, during a stop in the West Bank town of Jericho, Bush said the protests at the Jerusalem holy sites showed “what an emotional place this is as we go from each one of these very, very holy spots to the next.”

The first lady’s visit coincides with a private trip to the United States by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

In a speech Sunday in New York, he portrayed his plan to withdraw Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip this summer as vital to Israel’s security.

The event was supposed to be a showcase of support for Sharon, but he was interrupted by hecklers shouting, “Jews don’t deport Jews!”

Sharon is to speak Tuesday in Washington to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying group.

He is not scheduled to meet any U.S. government leaders during the visit.