It’s not a big news story. In fact, if you get your news from mainstream media, chances are that you didn’t hear about it at all. The United States Supreme Court decided to stay out of the fight between President Barack Obama and the state of Israel by letting him continue to make policy regarding passports.
Who cares about passports, right? The decision means that those who were born in Jerusalem must keep their passports saying they were born in Jerusalem and not born in Israel. This is due to a desire to not make those of Islamic descent who were born in Jerusalem have to acknowledge that they are Israelis even though Israel has held Jerusalem since 1967. It’s a part of the country and likely always will be, but that’s not keeping the President or the Supreme Court from skating past the issue.
According to USA Today:
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito dissented. They sided with Congress, which passed a law in 2002 allowing Americans born in Jerusalem to have Israel listed as their place of birth on their passports.
“Today’s decision is a first,” Roberts said. “Never before has this court accepted a president’s direct defiance of an act of Congress in the field of foreign affairs.” He said the court was bowing to fears that the congressional law could be misinterpreted as changing U.S. foreign policy, rather than allowing citizens to define their place of birth.