Supreme Court Overturns Congress on Jerusalem Passport Law
June 08, 2015
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The Supreme Court decided the much-anticipated Zivotofsky case, involving a congressional law which permitted American citizens born in Jerusalem to choose to list "Israel" as their place of birth, rather than just "Jerusalem," as the State Department mandated. (Full Opinion here.)
Needless to say, the case had enormous political implications, even if the legal issue itself was not particularly political. The Executive Branch refuses to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, or even though Israel has declared Jerusalem to be its capital both when it was divided prior to 1967, and after it was reunited in 1967. Worse still, for passport purposes it does not even recognize Jerusalem as part of Israel at all.
The political gloss is that the Executive Branch claims the issue should be subject to negotiations, but the reality is that the State Department fears backlash from the Palestinians and Israel-hating nations (i.e., most of the United Nations) should it side with Israel's claim to Jerusalem as its capital.
Congress, on the other hand, is in sync with American domestic public opinion, which is overwhelmingly pro-Israel, so in 2002 Congress passed a law to force the State Department's hand on the issue.