US lawmakers urge recognition of Jerusalem births as in Israel
Dozens of US lawmakers wrote a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last week calling on him to change the longstanding policy of refusing to recognize Americans born in Jerusalem as individuals born in Israel.
The State Department has long resisted recognizing Jerusalem as part of Israel in Americans’ birth certificates and other documentation, saying that doing so could hurt US diplomats’ ability to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
In their letter, dated May 3, the lawmakers insisted that such recognition would cause “no perceptible geopolitical impact,” but would be “meaningful to a number of our fellow citizens. It would honor the individual’s personal dignity and cherished personal identification with ‘Israel’ as his place of birth.”
Read More: Times Of Israel