Astonishing safety precautions were put in place around the Ramallah Friends School last week when George Bush paid a visit.

We read in the Jerusalem Post how Bush's entourage of security people flooded the area with sniffer dogs, bomb signal-jamming equipment, sniper marksmen, decoy helicopters and arranged for 10,000 police to surround Jerusalem. Hardly a heart-warming welcome.

The school's carport was used in practice runs for the helicopters, which were to ferry the US president to Mahmoud Abbas's HQ in Ramallah. Whether the landing site was the school or Abbas's Mukata compound was a closely guarded secret until the actual arrival. Marksmen took up positions on roofs. In the event fog forced the cavalcade onto the roads.

The West Bank was closed down for the visit, leaving any humanitarian needs of Palestinians to be co-ordinated by government agencies. Three doctors travelled with the president in case he was injured, and space was set aside on the US president's plane, Air Force One, for an operating theatre.

We wondered what the children made of all this.

Labels: abbas, bush, ramallah