As most are aware, a child born in Yerushalayim who applies for an American passport will find “Jerusalem” as the place of birth, not “Israel”, as the Government of the United States has difficulty recognizing the eternal Jewish capital of the Jewish People is not occupied as the Arab world contends.

The US State Department maintains that the areas liberated in the Six Day War are occupied and therefore, a child delivered in Jerusalem’s Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital was born in an “occupied area” and therefore, the passport cannot read “Israel”.

American citizens Ari and Naomi Zivotofsky, who reside in Jerusalem, are challenging the State Department’s policy and they have filed suit in a US Federal Court in Washington, D.C. they maintain the law signed by President George W. Bush in 2003 states Americans born in Jerusalem may indeed have “Israel” inscribed in the passport next to the city, in this case Jerusalem.

In this particular case, the Zivotofsky’s son Menachem was born in Jerusalem’s Shaare Tzedek Medical Center.

Ari Zivotofsky, a professor of neuroscience at Bar Ilan University, calls the American policy discriminatory and he hopes his lawsuit will create some new facts on the ground. Lower court hearings were unsuccessful, but for the Zivotofskys, it is a matter of principle, explaining their tenacious pursuance of the matter.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)