US President Barack Obama has made a pilgrimage 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.
A small group of protesters and sparse crowds of onlookers were on the streets of Bethlehem yesterday, where Mr Obama went on the final stage of his three-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
At the Church of the Nativity, built above the grotto where Christians believe Jesus was born, Mr Obama and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas chatted amiably.
A day earlier, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Mr Obama urged Mr Abbas to return to peace talks with Israel unconditionally, but there was no sign the Palestinian leader would do so.
Mr Abbas has said Israel must first stop its settlement activity in the West Bank before any resumption of the negotiations, frozen since 2010 over the issue.
In a speech in Jerusalem on Thursday, Mr Obama also urged Israelis to push their leaders to take risks and secure peace with the Palestinians, calling on his audience of university students to put themselves in the shoes of their occupied neighbours.
Earlier, Mr 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. Wearing a Jewish skullcap, Mr Obama rekindled an eternal flame at the Yad Vashem memorial next to a stone slab above ashes recovered from Nazi extermination camps.
Mr Obama has reiterated to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that settlement building in the West Bank was detrimental to peace efforts, but he retreated from overt calls for a halt to the building.
Mr Obama held a final round of talks with Netanyahu yesterday before flying to Jordan.
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