Status of Jerusalem for Passports

Can an American citizen list Israel as their  place of birth, instead  of  Jerusalem? That’s what the  Supreme Court is going to decide next year. A 12 year old  boy sued the US  government to allow the designation on his passport.

It’s a big  deal. The Washington Post  calls it a tinderbox. “That’s  because the issue of sovereignty over this ancient city is a very delicate matter.”

NPR notes that “Israel considers Jerusalem its eternal capital and has controlled the city in its entirety since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, which saw Israel also seize the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”

The Untied  States does  not  recognize Jerusalem as the capital  of Israel but many members  of Congress  do  and in 2002 passed a law allowing “Jerusalem-born applicants for U.S. passports to record their place of birth as “Israel” if they so request.”

President Bush signed the law but according to the New York Times he said that  said that “he would not follow the Jerusalem provision because it  ‘impermissibly interferes with the president’s constitutional authority to conduct the nation’s foreign affairs.’

That  law is now  part of  the  case before  the  Supreme Court.

Here is a review of the facts from NPR.