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PortugueseUS Court affirms the State Department’s position that no country can claim Jerusalem until final peace negotiations are concluded.
In Zivotofsky v. Clinton, the US Court of Appeals invalidated Section 214(d) of the 2003 Foreign Relations Authorization Act, which requires the Department of State to “record the place of birth as Israel” upon request of any Jerusalem-born US citizen or that citizen’s legal guardian. As a result of the Zivotofsky case, more than 50,000 American citizens’ passports will not list Jerusalem as their place of birth.
Under American law, the president has exclusive “power to determine whether to recognize a foreign sovereign,” wrote Judge Karen Henderson. Since Israel declared statehood in 1948, the US executive branch has refused to recognize any nations’ sovereignty in Jerusalem, claiming that it is a matter for final status peace negotiations. As a result, the US State Department began refusing to issue passports with “Jerusalem, Israel” as a place of birth in 2002
Ari and Naomi Zivotofsky, whose son Menechem was born in Jerusalem, have fought to change this policy. Unfortunately, the US Court of Appeals, which is the third US court to hear the case, ruled that Section 214(d) is unconstitutional.
The Zivotofsky family is therefore taking their case to the highest court in the land, the US Supreme Court. “We hope that before Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky’s bar mitzvah, he will be able to bear a passport that recognizes his birthplace as ‘Israel,’” said attorneys Nathan and Alyza Lewin. They added, “Federal government agencies have recognized in official documents and statements to the media that Jerusalem is in Israel. The State Department’s passport policy remains an isolated holdout, denying what is universally acknowledged, to the detriment of a right that a duly enacted law gives to American citizens.”
Many other Americans are equally outraged. On the tenth anniversary of the Hebrew University bombings, an attack in which a Palestinian terrorist murdered nine people and injured about 100 others, the mother of one of the American victims bemoaned the fact that Israel is not written on her sons’ death certificate. “It sounds terribly minor, but it really gets to me this time every year that Ben’s death certificate says that he died in Jerusalem, blank. The United States refuses to write that he died in Jerusalem, Israel. Well, the United States acknowledges that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. So, put it on your documents, because my son died because he was in Israel, not because he was in the ‘ethereal Jerusalem.”
JEWISH ORGANIZATIONS CONDEMN THE VERDICT
A number of Jewish organizations also condemned the verdict. “The court has effectively given a stamp of approval to the offensive State Department policy that singles out Israel for ‘special’ treatment,'” says Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defemation League. “All other American citizens born abroad may choose to list a city or area of birth instead of a country. Even Taiwan-born US citizens are permitted to identify Taiwan as their birthplace, despite protests from China.” The American Jewish Committee reiterated that Section 214(d) is indeed constitutional and that they expect to appeal.
“The United States’ position on the status of Jerusalem has long been at odds with the strong views of the Jewish community,” agrees Michael Siegal, Chairman of the Jewish Federations of North America Board of Trustees. “But we hope and believe that this law – which leaves 50,000 Americans without an official birth country – will be reinstated by the Supreme Court and enforced by the State Department.”
By Rachel Avraham, staff writer for United With Israel
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