Having pledged himself to revitalising the Middle East peace process, President Bush followed in the footsteps of another, more renowned peacemaker yesterday, winding up his trip to the Holy Land with a visit to the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus is believed to have delivered his most compelling sermons.

President Bush, a devout Christian, was done with preaching peace for now and confined himself to sightseeing as he visited Capernaum, where Jesus is said by tradition to have performed miracles.

“Amazing experience,” the President said, gazing out across the lake and listening to scripture read aloud by monks at the Church of the Beatitudes, which marks the spot where Jesus gave his Sermon on the Mount and pronounced “Blessed are the peacemakers”.

Mr Bush also visited Yad Vashem, the Jerusalem memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. Looking at aerial photographs taken by US aircraft of Auschwitz, the most notorious death camp, he declared that the United States had been wrong not to bomb it.

The US leader promised to return to Israel in May to join the celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the Jewish State’s founding and to monitor the results of negotiations that he said would yield a peace treaty by the end of this year.

Tony Blair, Middle East envoy for the international community, said that a peace deal had to be reached this time or the region risked degenerating into violence again. He added that he was cautiously optimistic about the chances of a breakthrough.

During his visit President Bush called on Israel to end its 40-year occupation of the Palestinian territories and to stop settlement building in the West Bank. His visit failed to address the fact that the Gaza Strip, where about 1.5 million Palestinians live, is still ruled by Hamas, the Islamist movement that remains implacably opposed to the peace initiative.

Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, denounced Mr Bush for suggesting that millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendents receive financial compensation instead of the right to return to their ancestral homes.

Mr Bush flew to Kuwait to continue a regional tour that will include talks with Saudi Arabian, Egyptian and Gulf leaders to drum up support not just for the new peace initiative but also against Iran, regarded by the Sunni Arab countries as well as the US as a serious threat.

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