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US Supreme Court Backs Obama on ‘Jerusalem Passport’

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The US Supreme Court on Monday, June 8, sided with US President Barack Obama regarding Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky’s passport listing

The US Supreme Court on Monday, June 8, sided with US President Barack Obama and criticized Congress for “overstepping its bounds” when it tried to press Obama to have Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky’s passport list “Jerusalem, Israel” as his place of birth, in a key case regarding the city’s status as Israel’s capital.

By a 6-3 majority, the Supreme Court struck down a law from 2002 which requires the US State Department to recognize Jerusalem as part of Israel, reports National Journal.

Both the administrations of Obama and George W. Bush refused to implement the law; the eastern part of the 3,000-year-old capital of the Jewish state was liberated in the 1967 Six Day War.

As it stands currently, a child born in Jerusalem has “Jerusalem” listed on their US pass-port without a country. Official US policy has been not to recognize any sovereignty on either side over Jerusalem ever since the Truman administration.

The US government claimed in a brief to the Supreme Court that recognizing that Jerusa-lem is part of Israel “would critically compromise the ability of the United States to work with Israelis, Palestinians and others in the region to further the peace process,” clearly indicating a desire to leave open the option to divide Jerusalem and create an Arab capital as the US has indeed pressed for.

Congress had tried to urge the State Department to recognize the Israeli capital by pass-ing a law in 2002, requiring the state to comply with the request of those born in Jerusa-lem who ask to have Israel listed on their passports. But both Bush and Obama ignored the law, claiming it interfered with foreign policy.

The case of Menachem Zivotofsky v. Hillary Clinton, now Menachem Zivotofsky v. John Kerry after John Kerry took over from Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, has been sent from court to court in the US for years.

When Clinton was still in office the courts determined that the issue with its ramifications regarding the limits of authority vis-a-vis the legislative and executive branches of the government fell under their jurisdiction.      (INN)

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