U.S. legislation angers PLO

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Palestinian officials reacted in anger on Tuesday to U.S. legislation that encouraged recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, warning that it would complicate peace efforts and could cost lives.\nIsrael posted troops on buildings overlooking Yasser Arafat's headquarters and set up checkpoints, watching for militants it says are still holed up with the Palestinian leader in the largely demolished compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Israel lifted a 10-day siege of the compound on Sunday but still seeks the militants' handover.\nPresident Bush signed a spending bill on Monday that urges his administration to shift the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which both the Palestinian and Israelis consider their capital.\nBush said he would treat the clauses on Jerusalem as a recommendation rather than an order and insisted that policy toward Jerusalem has not changed.\nSaeb Erekat, a member of the Palestinian Cabinet, said Bush's signing of the bill "undermines all efforts being exerted to revive the peace process and put it back on track."\nHe called it "a flagrant violation" of agreements signed by the United States and Israel to negotiate the permanent status of Jerusalem.\nThere was no immediate Israeli reaction to the bill.\nIn the bill, Congress specified for the first time that no funds may be used for the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem unless it is under the supervision of the American ambassador to Israel. It also said no money could be spent on official U.S. documents that listed Israel without identifying Jerusalem as the capital.\nBush said the provisions on Jerusalem would "impermissibly interfere with the president's constitutional authority to conduct the nation's foreign affairs."\nA spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Paul Patin, said "We don't consider them (the provisions) as binding."\nState Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the status of Jerusalem "must be negotiated" by the Israelis and Palestinians. Israel annexed the eastern part of Jerusalem, including sites sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians, after capturing it during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon considers all of Jerusalem Israel's indivisible capital.\nThe previous, more moderate government of Ehud Barak had offered the Palestinians a share of east Jerusalem--but the sides could never agree on the details, and on other issues, and peace talks broke down in January 2001 after the eruption of violence a few months earlier.\n"Such resolutions could mean Palestinian and Israeli lives," Erakat said, adding that the Palestinians would raise the issue with the U.N. Security Council, the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, or OIC.