This boy was born in Jerusalem, Israel. Israel recognizes that. America will not accept that he was born in Israel, because Obama will not accept that Jerusalem is part of Israel. His opinion is that a final Arab-Israeli settlement of long standing disputed territory needs to be resolved before Jerusalem could be considered Israel’s capital (only if the Arabs accept that, a.k.a. never.)
“Jerusalem’s political standing has long been, and remains, one of the most sensitive issues in American foreign policy,” Justice Kennedy wrote, “and indeed it is one of the most delicate issues in current international affairs.”
But Justice Kennedy said the Constitution gave the president exclusive authority to determine the nation’s stance. “Put simply,” he wrote, “the nation must have a single policy regarding which governments are legitimate in the eyes of the United States and which are not.”
The nation must speak with one voice, he said, and “that voice must be the president’s.”
In dissent, Chief Justice Roberts said the majority had taken a bold step. “Today’s decision is a first,” he wrote. “Never before has this court accepted a president’s direct defiance of an act of Congress in the field of foreign affairs.”
The case concerned a 2002 law that instructed the State Department to “record the place of birth as Israel” in the passports of American children born in Jerusalem if their parents requested the designation. The law was meant to take a symbolic stand on the status of Jerusalem, which has long divided not only Israelis and Arabs but also Congress and presidents of both parties.
Justice Scalia announced his dissent from the bench, a rare move indicating bitter disagreement.
“A principle that the nation must have a single foreign policy, which elevates efficiency above the text and structure of the Constitution, will systematically favor the president at the expense of Congress,” he said. “It is possible that it will make for more effective foreign policy, perhaps as effective as that of Bismarck or King George. But it is certain that, in the long run, it will erode the structure of equal and separated powers that the people established for the protection of their liberty.”
Reaction to the decision in the Middle East focused on its bottom line and not on the Supreme Court’s differing conceptions of the separation of powers required by the Constitution.
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, praised the decision and said it “sends a clear message to Israel that its policies of colonization are null and void.”
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And that is precisely the message President Barack “My actions convey my hatred extreme dislike of Israel” Obama wants to send. So Israeli citizens born in Jerusalem can’t get passport documentation in America to say they’re Israeli. Instead they are from the mythical and disputed nation known as Jerusalem. Will Texas be considered disputed territory gained through “illegal aggression” and populated with “illegal American settlements”? Will residents of Northern Ireland have their status questioned? What about ethnic Russians in Crimea, which was historically Russian, recently annexed by Russia, but since this act is not accepted officially, does Obama decide whether or not it is official? Because that gives him a lot of power to “rescue” “oppressed” people from an “occupying power.”
Full article from NY Times on Jerusalem passport issue HERE
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