A Canadian teenager who was born in Israel to Canadian parents who then returned to Canada, is suing the Canadian government for refusing to put the country of his birth on his passport. He was born in Jerusalem and Canadian authorities are only willing to place the name of his birth city but without his birth country until a general settlement in the Arab-Israeli conflict is achieved.
Let’s see: Jerusalem was under Ottoman control, then under British Mandatory control, then under Jordanian control (annexation unrecognized internationally) in the East part and under Israeli control in the West part. Finally, the East part came into Israeli hands but internationally, Israel’s annexation of Jerusalem is also unrecognized. So theoretically, our young man was born in Jerusalem, Turkey.
About par for the course from the Canadian government.
Or they could list it as “Jerusalem, Ottoman Empire”. I’d like to see the custom agents’ reaction to that.
Everyone recognized the Mandate. Perhaps “Jerusalem, Great Britain”? Or even better “Jerusalem, British Empire”. The fact that the Empire is now defunct should not pose a real problem.
This is an on going issue with the American state dept as well.
CANADIAN POLICIES ON KEY ISSUES
IN THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT
The first paragraph is okay, the rest is bull.
I have a similar problem. When I last lived in Israel, I lost my American passport and had to get a new one. I was at the time living in Jerusalem. I went to the American consulate in East Jerusalem (a complete pain in the butt for American Jews living in Jerusalem – and the consulate staff is not very friendly, but that’s another story), and after some hassles, came away with a new passport. The place of issue was listed as “Jerusalem,”. Note the comma after Jerusalem. No country was listed. This occasionally raises eyebrows when I’m traveling. I assume that no country was listed because Jerusalem is still disputed territory. (Although, I have to admit it’s a bit obscure to me, since I was living in West Jerusalem, which has been part of Israel since the 1949 ceasefire – although perhaps that’s not enough of a permanent status to make the U.S. state department recognize it as part of Israel….)
For the love of Moses can someone tell me why it’s a problem for the hypocrites in the West to write Jerusalem, Israel? What is Jerusalem, ‘palestine’? When was ‘palestine’ a country that Jerusalem would have been its capital? That’s as logical as Jerusalem, Atlantis 😀
How about removing the Province Quebec from the Canadian passport, after all Quebec has been trying to cecede from the Candian union for eons. If Jerusalem is in Palestine, where is Quebec. I’m trying to find it?
Yael