Rivlin: I was born in Jerusalem and I am Israeli

 

He was referring to the US Supreme Court decision this week in which American citizens born in Jerusalem cannot have the word Israel on their passports. 

 

The president made a point of welcoming Dempsey to "Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Israel," but said at the same time that Israel respected the decision of the Supreme Court because Israel respects the rule of law. 

 

President Rivlin also discussed the pressures that had been placed upon Israel by its allies over the years, including the United States encouraging Israel to enter into peace negotiations with Syria and to return the Golan Heights. However, he said that it is fortunate that the Golan Heights is still part of Israel given the situation in Syria, the danger to Syria\’s Druse community living near the border and the relations with Israel\’s Druse community. 

 

Gen. Dempsey said that he and his team were aware of the security situation and that this was one of the reasons that they were in Israel at this time. 

 

On Monday, the US Supreme Court struck down a congressional law that authorized placing “Israel” on passports of Jerusalem-born Americans. The 6-3 ruling was a victory for the administration of US President Barack Obama, which said the law unlawfully encroached on the president’s power to set foreign policy and would, if enforced, undermine the US government’s claim to be a neutral peacemaker in the Middle East.

 

Liberal justices Ruth Bader- Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan combined with swing justice Anthony Kennedy and generally highly conservative justice Clarence Thomas for the majority against justices John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, and Samuel Alito.

 

Kennedy’s majority opinion was based mainly on the idea that only the president has the power to recognize claims regarding sovereignty, and that the passport issue falls within the presidential prerogative.

 

But Scalia took the majority to task, saying its interpretation that putting the word Jerusalem on individual passport documents was tantamount to recognition of Israeli claims over the city was a “leap worthy of the Mad Hatter.”

 

Israel had no formal response to the decision, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon saying that Israel does not relate in the media to US court decisions.

 

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat responded by saying, “Just as Washington is the capital of the US, London is the capital of England, and Paris is the capital of France, Jerusalem was and will always be the capital of Israel – but more than that, it’s the heart and soul of the Jewish nation.”