While everyone’s focused on election day another big story is going on at the Supreme Court. Oral arguments over Zivotofsky v. Kerry began yesterday, in a case that could potentially decide U.S. policy over the sovereignty of Jerusalem, the West Bank as well as the entirety of Occupied Palestine. Under a deceptive guise, ostensibly “created to give individuals the right to self-identify,” the case brought before the court, pushed by stalwarts of the Israel lobby, including but not limited to the Zionist Organization of America, American Jewish Committee, the Anti Defamation League, and the Louis D. Brandeis Center, seeks a ruling that essentially grants Congress the authority to bypass the executive branch on Jerusalem, thereby stripping the president of the power to conduct foreign affairs. And yes, in Congress, the lobby rules.
Here’s background on Zivotofsky v. Kerry from Scotus blog’s editor-reporter Amy Howe (link):
Since 1948, the United States has declined to recognize any country as having sovereignty over the holy city of Jerusalem. But in 2002, Congress passed a law that instructed the Secretary of State, upon request, to list the birthplace of a U.S. citizen born in Jerusalem as “Israel” on his passport. President George W. Bush signed the law, but at the same time he issued a statement – known as a “signing statement” – in which he protested that the law “interferes with the President’s constitutional authority to conduct the Nation’s foreign affairs and to supervise the . . . executive branch.”
The child at the heart of today’s case, Menachem Zivotofsky, was born in Jerusalem in 2002 to U.S.-citizen parents. When his parents applied for a passport for him, they asked – consistent with the then-new law — to have his place of birth be designated as “Israel” on his passport. When the State Department refused, the family brought this lawsuit, which has already been to the Supreme Court once before. Two years ago, the Justices decided that the lawsuit could continue; it was not, they concluded, the kind of “political question” that courts should leave to the president and Congress.
The case went back to the lower court, which ruled in the government’s favor. It agreed with the government that only the president has the power to recognize foreign countries. And the law ran afoul of that power, it concluded, because it tried to change the government’s long-standing policy of not recognizing any country as having sovereignty over Jerusalem.
Described as both “a proxy war for U.S. foreign policy toward Israel“, a “foreign policy minefield,” and “a massive smack down between the congressional and executive branches” the implications of the Supreme Court ruling could have lasting repercussions not just to US politics, our national interest, and separation of powers, but damage to the Middle East could be devastating.
Obama’s Solicitor General, Don Verrilli, argued the status of Jerusalem is “the most vexing and volatile and difficult diplomatic issue that this nation has faced for decades” and suggested US credibility could hinge on the outcome:
[T]he fact of the matter is that the parties in the region, the nations in the region, and frankly people around the world and governments around the world scrutinize every word that comes out of the United States Government and every action that the United States Government takes in order to see whether we can continue to be trusted as an honest broker who could stand apart from this conflict and help bring it to resolution.
Zivotofsky’s lawyer, Alyza Lewin, said these claims are a “non issue.”
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan cut to the heart of the matter:
JUSTICE KAGAN: I take it, Ms. Lewin, when you say the West Bank, I take it you think that Congress could pass the identical statute with respect to a child born in Hebron, say.
MS. LEWIN: Saying that –
JUSTICE KAGAN: That that, too, is Israel?
MS. LEWIN: Correct.
JUSTICE KAGAN: Yes. Okay.
Hebron? Today Jerusalem, tomorrow the West Bank.
From the onset the Justice’s views were sharply split with Chief Justice Roberts along with Alito and Scalia appearing to back Congress. Justice Scalia noted that the State Department can decide who to recognize and be friendly with and Congress can do the same “and the fact that the State Department doesn’t like the fact that it makes the Palestinians angry is irrelevant”.
Lewin said the president’s authority to enter into executive agreements to resolve foreign claims was neither explicit nor exclusive nor could agreements entered into by the executive branch “contradict or run counter to the express will of Congress.” So laws passed by Congress “trump the president”. She also characterized the Solicitor General as having “greatly exaggerated” the potential negative consequences. Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick captures the moment:
Lewin closes by saying that the negative international consequences Verrilli warned of are “grossly exaggerated.” Kagan’s jaw literally drops. “Can I say,” Kagan stops her, “that this seems a particularly unfortunate week to be making this kind of ‘oh, it’s no big deal’ argument. I mean, history suggests that everything is a big deal with respect to the status of Jerusalem. And right now Jerusalem is a tinderbox because of issues about the status of and access to a particularly holy site there. And so sort of everything matters, doesn’t it?”
You can read yesterday’s oral arguments in their entirety at SupremeCourt.gov (PDF)
To be sure, we’ll be following up on the outcome.
huge thanks for highlighting this.
The Zivotofskys and their consorts are ruthless and dangerous. It’s their 2nd time before the court. This kid has spent his life with his parents fighting for another country. It’s more than sickening.
I’ve said it before wrt many issues, but this dual nationality/allegiance quagmire needs to go.
It is not only passports which are government papers wherein (as it might seem) government foreign policy is involved in this matter of “where was someone born” or, as it is sometimes asked, “what was someone’s nationality”. I think it is the same question, but who knows?
When my soon-to-be-wife and i applied at city hall, San Francisco, for a marriage license, the application form required us to state bride’s father’s “nationality” or “birth place” (it is too long ago for me to remember the precise question).
Her father had been born in Ramallah in 1985 and we tried “Ottoman Empire” as his nationality. No good (presumably because not on a list of OK-place-names). So then we tried “Palestine”. No good. This was late June 1967, and we could have tried “Israel”, but that didn’t suit us. So we said, “Jordan” and we were “in like Flynn.” So where did this list of place names come from? US Fed? somebody in California division of vital statistics? No idea. (No one consulted the supreme Court on that one.)
If Supreme Court judge Clarence Thomas has to handle a case about allowing Haitian boat refugees to enter the US and claims we should do so, because ‘they were on the way to these shores’ in the first place, ‘but got off the boat a few islands short of US mainland.’ the howls of ‘biased judgement’ and the demands to put ‘an assassin’s bullet where it belongs, would fill the airwaves ’till kingdom come’.
Kagan is the first justice appointed without any prior experience as a judge since William Rehnquist in 1972.[71][72][73] She is the fourth female justice in the Court’s history (and, for the first time, part of a Court with three female justices) and the eighth Jewish justice,[2] making three of the nine current justices Jewish – LINK to Wiki.
Almost every day, we learn just how devious Israel can be. There is no doubt there are pro Israel elements behind this, who have no qualms about using a little kid, just to push for what they have been denied – to call Jerusalem theirs. These are blatant moves to steal what international laws have stated they have no right to, and they are salivating at the chance to get the US support them arrogantly take this area for their own, and they have tried every dirty zionist trick in the book to make it happen. They have kept building illegal settlements, built universities, and most probably synagogues, over there, just to keep claiming that piece of property.
for all the folks that give up their right and responsibility to vote, this is WHY it matters, if nothing else does. SCOTUS matters in our everyday lives.
I happen to care deeply about our legendary failures called our foreign policy, but there’s no denying that things are ‘better’ in many ways under Obama than under Dubya and the neocons. I have some hope left for this President.
it drives me crazy that people don’t vote! so many died and fought and struggled to give us that precious right– some even want to take it away and disenfranchise US citizens today. if you don’t vote, I turn a deaf ear to your complaints. do something to change the status quo, hold your nose if you must, but vote.