The American State and Justice departments are in federal court in Washington, D.C., trying to defend their actions violating American laws recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The plaintiff in the case is Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky, who was born to two American citizens on October 17, 2002, in Jerusalem, Israel. Menachem and his parents are suing Secretary of State Powell in order to get the American government to issue the boy a passport that lists his birthplace as Jerusalem, Israel, rather than just Jerusalem. It’s routine for American passports to list the country of birth rather than only the city of birth, and in refusing to do so with respect to Israel, the State Department is caving in to Israel’s enemies who wish it would not exist.

Doing this violates American law. It violates, first of all, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for fiscal year 2003, which states in reference to the secretary of state, “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 shall, upon the request of the citizen or the citizen’s legal guardian, record the place of birth as Israel.” It violates, second of all, the Consolidated Appropriations Resolutions, 2003, which is American law, which states,”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 shall, upon request of the citizen, record the place of birth as Israel.”

And it violates, third of all, the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which states as the “policy of the United States” that “Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the state of Israel.” Never mind talk of presidential waivers with respect to the 1995 law — the waivers apply to the financial penalties that Congress imposed for failing to move the embassy, not to the statement of policy nor to the requirement that the embassy be moved.

Legalists in the executive branch of both the Clinton and Bush administrations objected that these laws were examples of Congress improperly usurping the executive branch’s constitutional role in foreign policy. But these legalists are on weaker ground because of both presidents’ failures to veto these laws.

Statutory and constitutional issues aside, the Bush administration’s failure to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is weak policy. Jerusalem has been central to the Jewish people since the days of Solomon’s temple. The city has been Israel’s capital since the Jewish state declared independence in 1948. The prime minister’s office is there, the Israeli Parliament meets there, Israeli flags fly in its streets. The residents speak Hebrew. The city is as much part of Israel as Tel Aviv. No government of Israel since 1948 of either political leaning has contemplated any plan under which the city would no longer be the capital of Israel.

Mr. Bush promised during the 2000 campaign to begin on the first day of his administration moving the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. The failure of his administration to acknowledge that Jerusalem is part of Israel and its capital represents an abject concession to the Arab and Muslim extremists who have rejected Israel’s right to exist since 1948. These extremists are the same terrorists who attacked America on September 11, 2001, and the same ones who are now attacking American troops in Iraq and Israeli and American civilians in Jerusalem. By failing to acknowledge publicly that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital — and by fighting in court so as to refuse to do so — the Bush administration is offering encouragement to the terrorists who hope eventually to dislodge Israel from its sovereignty over its capital, Jerusalem.