After Menachem Zivotofsky was born in 2002 to American parents in West Jerusalem, his mother tried unsuccessfully to get him a passport showing his place of birth as "Jerusalem, Israel." A 2002 law directs the State Department to enter "Israel" on the passport of an American citizen born in Jerusalem, if the citizen requests.
Nine years (and a lifetime of litigation) later, Zivotofsky is still seeking the passport. The constitutionality of the law is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court in Zivotofsky v. Clinton. Zivotofsky’s brief was filed last Friday and One Jerusalem held an informative conference call this week with his lawyers.
At the New York Sun, I discuss why Zivotofsky may want to point out to the Supreme Court a series of pictures appearing on the White House website from Vice President Biden's trip to Israel last year — all of which have a caption identifying his location as "Jerusalem, Israel." Here is one of them:
Vice President Joe Biden meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Israel, March 9, 2010. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann).