Bush ends first Israel, West Bank visit in footsteps of Jesus
Updated: 2008-01-11 15:15
JERUSALEM - US President George W. Bush was set on Friday to follow up his two-day peacemaking mission in Israel and the West Bank with a Holy Land pilgrimage in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.
 US President George W. Bush (L), Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (R) and other Israeli ministers raise their glasses during an official dinner party at the PM's residence in Jerusalem, January 10. [Agencies]
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Also before heading off for Kuwait, he was set to meet with former British prime minister Tony Blair, now the special envoy for the diplomatic quartet working for Middle East peace, and visit the Yad Vashem memorial on the Holocast.
On Thursday, the US president predicted on an optimistic note the signing of a Middle East peace treaty within a year and called for an end to Israel's four-decade occupation of Palestinian land.
Giving an assessment of his talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders over the previous two days, he said it was time for both to make "difficult choices" for peace to become a reality and allow the creation of a Palestinian state.
"There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967," he said on his return to Jerusalem from the West Bank, where he held talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
A peace agreement "must establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people, just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people," Bush said.
Ahead of a tour of Gulf Arab allies, he called on "Arab countries to reach out to Israel, a step that is long overdue."
The US leader also prayed and lit a candle at the sixth century Byzantine Church of the Nativity in the West Bank town of Bethlehem where Jesus is believed to have been born.
On Friday, after talks with Blair, Bush was to visit the Sea of Galilee near where Jesus is said to have fed 5,000 people with just a few loaves and fish.
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