ARAB-US RELATIONS - Oct. 1 - Arabs Denounce Legislation On Jerusalem.

PA and other Arab officials bitterly denounce the US legislation on Jerusalem, signed by Pres. Bush into law and requiring his administration to identify Jerusalem as Israel's capital in official documents. PA Planning and International Co-operation Minister Nabil Shaath tells Reuters: "This is an act against peace, an act of incitement". Qatar, current head of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, condemns the law as a "flagrant violation of UN Security Council resolutions on Jerusalem". (The PA wants to make E. Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, the capital of the future state they aspire to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its capital). London, Washington's main ally in any future action against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, also puts the US on notice that policy towards Israel must be even-handed. British PM Tony Blair says UN resolutions must be implemented across the Middle East, not just in Baghdad. He says: "Yes, what is happening in the Middle East now is ugly and wrong - the Palestinians living in increasingly abject conditions, humiliated and hopeless [and] Israeli civilians brutally murdered". Blair calls on Israel and the PA to resume full peace negotiations by end-2002 (see Arabs-Israel).