Laura Bush heckled in Jerusalem shrine visit

JERUSALEM, Sunday (Reuters)

JEWISH and Muslim protesters heckled U.S. first lady Laura Bush when she visited a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site on Sunday during a Middle East goodwill tour.

Dozens of nationalist Jews demanding Washington free convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard shouted and waved placards at Bush as she visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City. They were kept back by Israeli police and U.S. Secret Service agents.

She inserted a small handwritten note between the stones, and paused at the Wall 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 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?"

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

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

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

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

Most worshippers in the Dome of the Rock mosque were quiet during Bush's visit, with some curious women following her as she walked about within a security cordon.

"It's so beautiful, just magnificent," she said, gazing up at its famed golden dome.

The shrine visited by Bush is known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif ("Noble Sanctuary") and Jews as Temple Mount.

It is the most sacred site for Jews, the spot where biblical King Solomon built a temple and where a second temple was razed by the Romans, except for its Western Wall.

It is Islam's third holiest site, home to the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques.

The shrine has been a frequent scene of violence and tension in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A truce now prevails.

In April, Israeli police enforcing a ban on non-Muslim worshippers in the mosque compound sealed it off to foil a rightist Jewish march, part of a campaign to re-ignite violence aimed at blocking Israel's plan to withdraw from occupied Gaza.