Obama heckled as he makes a surprise visit to Jerusalem's Western Wall

The Democrat presidential hopeful, wearing a Jewish skullcap, placed a prayer he had written in the wall and bowed his head while a rabbi read a psalm calling for peace in the holy city. 

One worshipper chanted "Obama, Jerusalem is not for sale" and "Jerusalem is our land" as the Illinois senator stood at the wall, a relic of the ancient Jewish temple destroyed during Roman rule nearly 2,000 years ago.

He assured Israel and its U.S. Jewish supporters on Wednesday that he was a friend who would not press for concessions in peace talks with Palestinians that would compromise its security.

Israel visit: Barack Obama touches the stones of the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, in Jerusalem's Old City

Hailing Israel as a "miracle", he vowed staunch support and held only a low-profile meeting with Palestinian leaders in the occupied West Bank.

Last month Obama dismayed Palestinians when he said Jerusalem must be Israel's "undivided" capital. Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in 1967, including the Old City where the Western Wall is situated, but Palestinians want it to be the capital of a future state.

Obama later said he had used "poor phrasing".

He flies to Germany this morning, where he will give the only public speech of his week-long foreign tour, an outdoor address on transatlantic ties that is likely to draw tens of thousands.

Highly popular in Germany, where he is often likened to former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, Obama will also meet for the first time Chancellor Angela Merkel, who opposed his initial plan to speak at the Brandenburg Gate.

Instead, Obama will give his evening address at the "Victory Column" in Berlin's central Tiergarten park, down the road but still within sight of the Gate, a landmark that stood behind the Berlin Wall for decades as a potent symbol of the Cold War.  

Jerusalem: Mr Obama was heckled as he stood at the wall

Israelis and Palestinians were in rare agreement after Mr Obama sped through an event-packed schedule: He makes a positive impression and says the things they want to hear, but his real audience is back home in America.

Obama spent a full day meeting leaders and appearing before cameras in all the sensitive places - Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, the town of Sderot with its collection of rockets fired from nearby Gaza and the headquarters of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Israeli newspapers were this morning covered with quotes from Obama interviews in which he expressed his commitment to the Jewish state.

He told the Yediot Ahronot daily that he did not rule out a military strike against Iran to keep it from developing nuclear weapons - a critical issue for Israelis who consider Iran their greatest enemy.

"He is here in order to impress the voters back home," said Israeli political analyst Yossi Alpher.

Crowded house: The presidential candidate said Jerusalem should not be 'sliced up'

"Israelis find him interesting, he says the right things carefully, but it's not the kind of visit that one can assess in any substantive or qualitative way."

In public appearances, Obama assured the Israelis he would not pressure them to compromise their security, would maintain and even expand the "special relationship" between the U.S. and Israel and back Israel's right to defend itself against attacks.

In his brief visit to the West Bank city of Ramallah, he said that if elected president he would start working for Israeli-Palestinian peace at the beginning of his term and not the end, as previous presidents have done.

He expressed strong support for the creation of an independent Palestinian state, backed negotiations between Israel and "moderate Palestinians," a nod to Abbas, while rejecting talks with his rivals in the militant Islamic Hamas, who overran Gaza last year.

Plea for peace: Obama receives a t-shirt from Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal. Thousands of Qassam rockets have been fired by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip at the town

Friend of Israel: Mr Obama with the woman many tip to be the next Israeli president, Tzipi Livni

Before he arrived late Tuesday, there was considerable skepticism about the candidate among both Israelis and Palestinians.

Israelis worried about what they see as the traditional Democratic tendency to place much of the burden of peacemaking moves on Israel, in contrast to the Bush administration's almost total backing of Israel's stand.

Some were put off by the faint Muslim strain in Obama's family background.
In a demonstration of understanding for Israel's fear that Iran will develop nuclear arms, Obama said "there has to be" a military option to stop the program.

"I think that without the military option our enemies in Iran won't relate to the discussions with us seriously, Obama told Yediot Ahronot in the interview published Thursday.

"Thus we need to reserve this option and to prepare for it seriously."

But, Obama added, a strike on Iran or any extremists is not the preferred avenue, rather diplomatic action.

Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, a U.S.-based Jewish organization, said he met briefly with Obama Wednesday evening, and the candidate repeated his commitments to Israel. 

Obama jet: The political star meets with journalists before taking off for Germany where he will give his only public speech of the whistle-stop tour

Foxman said he had heard Israelis express concerns earlier. "To what extent he's laid them to rest, time will tell," he said, adding that Israelis were "impressed with the depth of his knowledge, his understanding and his response."

Palestinian concerns were more generic. Many said that U.S. administrations are always pro-Israel, regardless of who is serving as president.

Mansour Habayed, 28, who works for a Palestinian cell phone company, noted that Obama spent much more time in Israel than in the West Bank. "I am not optimistic that Obama will be a different president of the U.S., in terms of finding a solution to our problem," he said.

Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who met with Obama early Wednesday, said the realities of the offices of U.S. president and Israeli prime minister determine the relationship.

"Whoever is elected, both here and there, the governments will work together," Netanyahu said, referring to the likelihood that Israel will have elections next year.

Though clearly charmed by Obama's charisma, both sides assumed Obama was aiming at his own electorate, not them.

"It was a campaign visit, but the positive thing for Palestinians was the pledge that Barack Obama will work from the first day in the White House, if he gets elected, to find a solution to the Palestinian issue," said Abbas political adviser Nimr Hamad.

"Because it was a campaign visit, it was focused much more on Israel, to attract the Jewish vote."