Confronting an issue fraught with Middle East politics, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear for the second time a passport dispute centering on whether Americans born in Jerusalem may list their place of birth as Israel.
The court said today it will review a lower court ruling that struck down a 2002 law that authorised identifying Jerusalem as part of Israel on US passports. The law was passed over the objection of President George W Bush, and the lower court said the law impermissibly infringed on the president's power to recognise foreign governments. The Obama administration has taken the same position as its predecessor.
The US has refused to recognise any nation's sovereignty over Jerusalem since Israel's creation in 1948.
Also Read
The justices previously ruled on a different aspect of the case.
The challenge to the passport rule was brought by parents of an American boy named Menachem Zivotofsky, who was born in a Jerusalem hospital soon after the law was passed.
The law was part of a large foreign affairs bill that Bush signed into law. But even as he did so, he issued a signing statement in which he said that "US policy regarding Jerusalem has not changed."
Had Zivotofsky been born in Tel Aviv, the State Department would have issued a passport listing his place of birth as Israel. The regular practice for recording the birth of a US citizen abroad is to list the country where it occurred.
But the department's guide tells consular officials, "For a person born in Jerusalem, write Jerusalem as the place of birth in the passport."
Ever since President Harry S Truman recognised Israel upon its declaration of nationhood in 1948, no president has accepted permanent Israeli rule over the entirety of Jerusalem.
Since Israel's victory in the 1967 Six-Day War brought the entire city under Israeli control, US policy has regarded the sensitive status of Jerusalem as something ultimately to be determined in talks between Israel and its negotiating partners. The US Embassy remains in Tel Aviv.
The court will hear the case in the fall and should hand down a decision by June 2015.
