Dawn.com, Washington :
The US Supreme Court declined on Monday to show Jerusalem as a part of Israel in American passports despite a strong congressional endorsement of the demand.
The decision renders a US law, made more than 10 years ago, unconstitutional.
The court ruled on a plea from a US citizen born in Jerusalem whose parents wanted his US passport to show his birthplace as Israel, instead of Jerusalem. The parents of Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky began their legal battle in 2002, soon after his birth. The requested change would have affected the US policy towards Jerusalem, which still recognises the disputed nature of the historical city.
Both Palestinians and Israelis have equal claim to Jerusalem and the current US policy accommodates both. The US Congress, however, endorsed the demand for change more than a decade ago.
The ruling came just a few months after a feud between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who tried to prevent the US administration from concluding a nuclear deal with Iran.
As the court heard the plea, the US State Department’s warned that a simple passport alteration could “provoke uproar throughout the Arab and Muslim world.”
US Solicitor General Donald Verrilli argued that a ruling for the Zivotofskys would undermine the president’s authority to set policy for “the most vexing and volatile and difficult diplomatic issue that this country has faced for decades.”
The decision came more than seven months after both sides completed oral arguments in early November. It was the longest-pending high court decision.
The requested change would have allowed more than 50,000 US citizens, born in Jerusalem, to show Israel as their birthplace.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the 6-3 decision for the court, declaring: “The power to recognise or decline to recognize a foreign state and its territorial bounds resides in the president alone.”
Reuters adds: Israel’s defense minister said on Tuesday he did not believe a stable peace agreement could be reached with the Palestinians in his lifetime – one of the bleakest assessments from a top-level cabinet member since talks collapsed last year.
Moshe Yaalon, one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest allies, accused the Palestinians of having “slammed the door” on efforts to keep discussions going, and said they had rejected peace-for-land deals for at least 15 years.
His comments, in a speech to a strategic conference, were dismissed by a Palestine Liberation Organization official who told Reuters that Netanyahu’s administration bore the blame for the impasse.
Peace negotiations broke off in April 2014, with disputes raging over Israeli settlement building in occupied land Palestinians seek for a state and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s unity deal with Hamas Islamists who rule Gaza and do not recognize Israel’s right to exist.
“As for the possibility of reaching an agreement … there is someone who says he doesn’t see one during his term,” Yaalon said, referring to remarks U.S. President Barack Obama made in an Israeli television interview last week.
“I don’t see a stable agreement during my lifetime, and I intend to live a bit longer,” Yaalon told the Herzliya Conference, held annually near Tel Aviv.
Netanyahu was due to address the forum later in the day.
Palestine Liberation Organization official Wasel Abu Youssef told Reuters past and present Israeli governments had “closed the political horizon” by demanding to retain major settlement blocs and rejecting a right of return for Palestinian refugees.
Youssef said Netanyahu’s administration bore responsibility for the current impasse through its settlement activities, refusal to release jailed Palestinians and demand Palestinians recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
On the eve of his March 17 election to a fourth term, Netanyahu drew international criticism by saying there would be no Palestinian state if he remained Israel’s leader.
