JERUSALEM — Seated under an olive tree with a dozen Israeli students, President Bush was bemoaning the bad rap he gets in the Middle East. Many people believe he hates Muslims, he said, but it's not true.
It was as friendly an audience as Bush could expect in this part of the world, so Henriette Chacar's comeback gave him pause. "I think it comes out that you don't like Muslims because in most of your speeches you tend to relate extremism to Muslims," said the 16-year-old Israeli Arab, who is Christian.
Without bristling, Bush conceded the point.
"Actually, what I say is you're not a religious person if you're a murderer," he replied. "But you're right. I've got to do a better job of making it clear when I talk about Islam [that] I talk about a peaceful religion."
The exchange Friday was part of an unusually frank and lively discussion between an unscripted Bush and a diverse group of young Israelis as he ended a 48-hour visit to Israel. It showed a reflective, self- critical side of a leader in his final year in office, but also a gap in his awareness of the rigid social norms that underlie the region's conflict and reinforce division.
At one point, Bush asked whether Arabs and Jews date, or go to the same dances.
"No dances?" he asked, sounding surprised by the answer.
Then he glanced at 17-year-old Jonathan Blumenfeld, who had spoken about his music, and joked: "You should get him to take out his guitar. How much reconciliation there would be on the dance floor."
Manar Saraia put the issue to rest. It's unusual that she has Jewish roommates, but the 22-year-old Israeli Arab Muslim told Bush that her family would not approve if she dated or married a Jew.
"The parents and the children themselves think if we are of different religions that it's hard to live together as a couple," she said.
Bush conversed easily with the students as he sat with them in a circle of wrought iron chairs on the lawn of the Bible Lands Museum. First Lady Laura Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joined them.
The student group, representing schools selected by the U.S. Embassy, was a mosaic of native-born Jews, Jewish immigrants from Ethiopia, Argentina and the former Soviet Union, and the two Arab Israeli citizens, members of a minority in Israel that often identifies with Palestinians in the neighboring West Bank and Gaza Strip. They included high school, university and postgraduate students.
