The little town of Bethlehem lay still and white beneath a clear azure sky waiting for President Clinton and his party journeying like kings from afar, guided by the light of a single star.
Cars were turned back at the town's entrance by Israeli police. Residents and visitors were obliged to walk through nearly empty streets past shuttered shops, a chill wind nipping at their heels and stirring sand devils in places where building materials had been left behind by workers performing a municipal facelift. millennium. Every 20 metres or so a Palestinian policeman in crisp new blue camouflage uniform stood sentry. Armed Palestinian soldiers in green graced roof-tops decorated with US and Palestinian flags. The long walk up hill and down lane showed that the little town is a little town no longer. A banner strung across the road proclaimed: "Bethlehem 2000 Welcomes the First Family to the City of the Holy Family".
The way to Manger Square had been closed by a high wooden wall where gorgons demanding pink and green press credentials reigned (in Gaza they had been yellow). Even correspondents travelling with the White House party were turned away. So they and we lesser press people infiltrated by other routes.
Mine was an interesting one. It took me past hundreds of Palestinian schoolchildren armed with flags, placards and posters and corralled behind barricades in the centre of the plaza in front of the Bethlehem Municipality, decorated with flags and fir branches.
One group of boys and girls dressed in T-shirts and blue peaked caps carried placards imploring Mr Clinton to press Israel to release their fathers from Israeli prisons; next to them were women holding up portraits of their incarcerated husbands and sons, and round the bend was a gaggle of girls from Bethlehem and the neighbouring village of Beit Sahour who carried placards proclaiming "We have a dream . . . of independence and freedom" and "We love peace but we adore liberty."
Dark-haired Hala, fair Maria and thin-faced Ala, all 12, were sceptical about the presidential visit. Ala sighed and slung her placard face down over the rail. "Clinton is our friend now but it will change nothing." Hala echoed: "Nothing, the Israelis won't listen." Maria shrugged: "Not even to him."
The arrival of the Clintons and the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, and his wife, Suha, was heralded by helicopters, the muffled tones of the elderly bells of the Church of the Nativity and the soaring voice of the muezzin calling the faithful to noon prayers in the pink and white mosque which overlooks the church. A few minutes later the leaders swept into the square in their limos, bull-necked security men jogging along beside them.
The Clintons were taken for a tour of the church while assembled prelates in colourful cloaks and curious cowls chatted to US congressmen and Bethlehem bigwigs. When the President emerged from the church, he switched on the lights on one of three tall trees magnificently arrayed in red and gold, the one with the shimmering star on top. Then he and Hillary Rodham Clinton and daughter, Chelsea, joined in singing O Little Town Of Bethlehem and other carols with the girls' choir.
The high and mighty swept out without a look at the children in the plaza. They had come by bus and waited all morning for Mr Clinton to pass by their little demo, but he never came, he never read what they wanted to say. He was imprisoned by security as much as their fathers and brothers.