The Supreme Court has agreed to rule whether an American born in Jerusalem can list his birthplace as Israel on his passport. The case involves nine-year-old Menachem Zivotofsky, whose American-Israeli parents, Ari and Naomi, want the birth country on his passport listed as Israel. The US State Dept. has refused to do this on the grounds that Jerusalem is not in Israel.
Jerusalem, of course is the capital of Israel and the Jewish people. The idea that a person born in Jerusalem was not born in Israel is akin to the idea that a person born in Washington, DC, was not born in the United States.
Americans for Peace Now has filed a brief supporting the Obama administration in its arguments to the Supreme Court against registering Jerusalem-born Americans as having been born in Israel.
We understand that Americans for Peace Now has a dovish position on the peace process, but we had no idea that it went to the extreme of denying Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem. Mind you, neither the plaintiff nor the defendant in the court case determines the boundaries of Jerusalem. But no matter. Any hint that Jerusalem is Jewish is too much for American for Peace Now.
Its friend-of-the-court brief states: This case represents a direct challenge to more than six decades of US foreign policy on one of the most sensitive foreign policy questions facing the US recognition of sovereignty in Jerusalem.
Thankfully, APN is the only Jewish group to back the government in the case of Zivotofsky v. Clinton. Eleven Jewish groups have filed friend-of-the-court briefs supporting the plaintiffs. The American Jewish Committee has abstained.
A Jewish organization is really getting to the bottom of the barrel when its position on Jerusalem is the same as Hamass.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
