US President Barack Obama made a pilgrimage yesterday to the traditional birthplace of Jesus, receiving a subdued reception from Palestinians at the end of a Holy Land visit heavy on symbolism and lacking in practical steps toward peace.
“Gringo, return to your country,” read a sign held by a small group of Palestinian protesters who watched the presidential motorcade roll into Bethlehem from Jerusalem after it passed through Israel’s controversial barrier in the occupied West Bank.
Sparse crowds of onlookers were on the streets of the wind-swept Biblical city, where Obama spent only 35 minutes, the final stage of his three-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
At the Church of the Nativity, above the grotto where Christians believe Jesus was born, Obama and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas chatted amiably.
The US president ducked to enter through its small Door of Humility. Manger Square, the plaza in front of the church, was almost deserted except for security personnel.
A few waiters watched from a nearby restaurant and souvenir shops were empty or shuttered.
Earlier, Obama visited Israel’s most powerful national symbols, paying homage at the Holocaust memorial and the graves of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, and Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister assassinated in 1995 by an extremist Jew over peace moves with the Palestinians.
A day earlier, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Obama urged Abbas to return to peace talks with Israel unconditionally, but there was no sign the Western-backed Palestinian leader would do so.
Abbas has said Israel must first stop its settlement activity in the West Bank before any resumption of the US-sponsored negotiations, frozen since 2010 over the issue.
Obama held a final round of talks with Netanyahu yesterday before flying to Jordan to discuss with King Abdullah an array of problems, including Syria and Israeli-Palestinian peace moves.
Obama hopes to reassure Abdullah of Washington’s support at a time when Jordan is flooded with refugees from Syria and battling economic difficulties and tensions from the “Arab Spring”.
While Washington backs the Syrian opposition’s effort to oust President Bashar al-Assad, it has limited its support to non-lethal aid to anti-government rebels.
Jordan and Egypt are the only two Arab states to have signed peace treaties with Israel and Amman is seen as a potential player in any future US-led peace push. It also has a majority Palestinian population.