US Supreme Court to hear Jerusalem passport case

A Supreme Court case involving a 12-year-old Israeli boy has put the United States in a difficult position as it seeks to project credibility as a neutral peacemaker between Israelis and Palestinians.

On Monday, the nine justices will consider whether the administration of President Barack Obama must follow a law enacted by Congress that allows U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem to have Israel listed as their birthplace on passports.

The U.S. has refused to enforce the law ever since it was enacted in 2002, and the legal question at hand is whether or not following the law would infringe on the president's exclusive right to recognize foreign nations. 

The case was prompted by Ari and Naomi Zivotofsky, parents of Jerusalem-born U.S. citizen Menachem Zivotofsky. They sued in 2003 on behalf of their then-baby son for his place of birth to be listed as "Israel" instead of "Jerusalem" on his passport. The legal fight has bounced around the U.S. court system for a decade — an odyssey that included a previous trip to the Supreme Court that led to a ruling in 2012 on a more technical procedural issue.

The Obama administration fears that allowing the passport to state "Israel" could be interpreted as an endorsement of the country's hotly disputed sovereignty claims over Jerusalem.

While the U.S. and international community recognize East Jerusalem as occupied Palestinian territory that Palestinians want to make the capital of their future state, Israel claims the entire city as its "eternal, undivided capital."

Negotiations over the status of Jerusalem have long been seen as key to any potential peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians.

The most recent U.S.-brokered peace talks with Israelis and Palestinians broke down in April. Tensions are even higher than usual in Jerusalem after Israel on Thursday temporarily closed access to a Muslim holy site, the Al-Aqsa mosque, following the shooting of a far-right Jewish activist who seeks the site’s destruction. Violent clashes broke out around the city, with protesters on both sides facing off against Israeli police.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recently announced a series of settlement expansions into Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem — further heightening tensions and earning condemnation from the U.S., which along with the international community, considers settlement activity on occupied land illegal.

Followers of the conflict fear that a Supreme Court ruling that de facto recognizes Israel’s sovereignty over the city could exacerbate the situation.

"The last thing you want is the United States to come in from left field and undermine the credibility of the process," said Daniel Kurtzer, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel from 2001 to 2005 and now teaches at Princeton University.

The State Department's position is that a loss for the U.S. government would be perceived around the world as a reversal of American policy that could cause “irreversible damage” to the government’s power to influence the peace process, according to court papers.

The Obama administration, over the objections of members of Congress, has told the court that the president alone gets to make key foreign policy decisions. If enforced, the law sends the message that "the United States has concluded that Israel exercises sovereignty over Jerusalem," administration lawyers said in the court papers.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee is the only pro-Palestinian group that filed a brief in support of the U.S. government, saying the law discriminates against Americans of Palestinian heritage because it does not allow U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem to list Palestine as their place of birth.

"The law benefits some Americans, but not others," said Abed Ayoub, the group's legal and policy director.

Al Jazeera and Reuters