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On May 9, Seth Lipsky posted an article at the Wall Street Journal regarding the case of a 9-year-old American citizen named Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky. Known in the case as MBZ, Menachem was born in 2002 in Jerusalem. He wants the American Embassy in Tel Aviv to issue him a certificate of birth abroad stating that he was born in Israel.

The article reports:

The relevant law is the part of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 2002 that deals with “United States policy with respect to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.” The Supreme Court will adjudicate the provision stating that, for “purposes of the registration of birth, certification of nationality, or issuance of a passport of a United States citizen born in the city of Jerusalem, the Secretary [of State] shall, upon the request of the citizen or the citizen’s legal guardian, record the place of birth as Israel.”

The law passed the Senate and the House–the Senate by unanimous consent. Just for the record, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in the Senate at the time. When George W. Bush signed the law, the article reports:

…he issued a signing statement suggesting that he didn’t intend to enforce that part of the law. The measure, he said, “impermissibly interferes with the President’s constitutional authority to conduct the Nation’s foreign affairs and to supervise the unitary executive branch.”

Now the case is headed to the Supreme Court of the United States.

The article further reports:

Mr. Bush was challenged by the infant Mr. Zivotofsky?via his parents?not long after he was born. In the fight over whether the Supreme Court would take the case, Mrs. Clinton echoed Mr. Bush’s concerns, citing her department’s view that “any unilateral action by the United States that would signal, symbolically or concretely, that it recognizes that Jerusalem is a city that is located within the sovereign territory of Israel would critically compromise the ability of the United States to work with Israelis, Palestinians and others in the region to further the peace process.”

This is ridiculous. Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. It has been the capital of Israel since Bible times. The historic record is clear. Aside from that, since when does America have the right to divvy up another country’s capital city? Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky is not the only child of Americans in the position of having a birth certificate stating that he was born in Jerusalem without mentioning Israel. I think it’s time to stop playing silly games to placate terrorists and tell the truth. Israel has one tiny piece of land amid a sea of Arab countries. Arabs in Israel have more freedom and more economic success in Israel than they do in their own countries. The Arab countries around Israel have mistreated the Palestinians in order to use them as pawns in the war against Israel. We accomplish nothing by trying to placate the Arab countries around Israel. They will not be happy until Israel is destroyed. Until we realize that, all the negotiations in the world will accomplish nothing.