GAZA CITY/LONDON, 2 October — Arabs yesterday bitterly denounced US legislation requiring President George W. Bush’s administration to identify Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Some of Washington’s Arab allies acknowledged that Bush had stated that US policy on Jerusalem was unchanged despite the provisions inserted by Congress into the act that provides over $4 billion to run the State Department in 2003.
But most Arab reactions reflected anger at what was seen as fresh evidence of US bias toward Israel, which annexed Arab East Jerusalem, encompassing one of Islam’s holiest shrines, after capturing it in the 1967 Middle East war. "This is an act against peace, an act of incitement," Palestinian Authority’s Planning and International Cooperation Minister Nabil Shaath told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
"It is against the commitment of the United States, contrary to international law, contrary to agreements signed by the United States. This is really totally unhelpful and obstructs any move toward the peace process," he said, calling the US legislation "an insult to the Arab and Muslim world".
"This is unprecedented. It’s a blatant violation of all agreements signed between the Israelis and the Palestinians," top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told reporters in Ramallah, after a Cabinet meeting in Arafat’s war-ravaged office. "What will decide the future of Jerusalem is the Palestinian people and not the Congress, which is hijacked by Israeli pressure groups," Erekat charged, accusing Bush of "adding fuel to the fire" in the region.
OIC Secretary-General Abdelouahed Belkeziz voiced "particular concern because of the political and legal considerations stemming from this legislation which harm Islamic interests."
"This decision is in total contradiction with (UN) Security Council resolutions," Belkeziz said in a statement in the name of the 57-member Islamic body based in Jeddah. "Such an attitude from the American administration at a time when Israel is waging an unprecedented campaign against the Palestinian people is liable to exacerbate resentment among Muslims ... and is not liable to facilitate the role of the United States as co-sponsor of the Middle East peace process," he said.
Bush signed the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for 2003 on Monday. Its provisions go beyond previous moves by Congress, which has pressed successive administrations on the related question of moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Kuwait voiced regret at the legislation. "I know of the pressures inside the United States and we hope this will be amended at a later stage," Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah told reporters.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian leadership yesterday welcomed Tony Blair’s call for the resumption of negotiations on a Palestinian state and for UN resolutions to be implemented, and urged the British prime minister to pressure Israel. "This is a very important statement from Blair. We ask him to push Israel to immediately implement UN Security Council Resolution 1435 and withdraw its tanks from all occupied Palestinian territories," Nabil Abu Rudeina, a senior aide to Arafat, told reporters. Blair said yesterday that UN resolutions on the Middle East "should apply as much as to Iraq," in a veiled call on the hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government to completely pull out its tanks from around the Palestinian leader’s office.
