Follow-up on "West Bank"

I received this in response to a letter of protest (below):

Dear Mr. Medad,

Thank you for your note.

Please be advised that is a long-standing U.S. government policy, and does not represent a recent change. We will certainly be happy to pass along your views to Washington regarding this issue.

Sincerely,

Luke Zahner

U.S. Consulate General Jerusalem

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Letter of Protest

Dear ,

Thank you for the update on the regulations.

On behalf of myself and additional American citziens, I kindly request that you convey the following protest to the highest officials both in the Consulate as well as the State Department in Washington, including Madam Secretary of State.

The custom adopted by the United States bureaucracy to note "West Bank" for babies born to American citizens in the regulation 7 FAM 1360 APPENDIX D BIRTH IN ISRAEL, JERUSALEM, AND ISRAELI-OCCUPIED AREAS whereby

"If a child is born in the West Bank, whether they are Israelis or Palestinians, place of birth on the U.S. passport is either the city (Efrat, Ramallah, etc.) or the area – the West Bank in that case."

And that furthermore,

"In addition, since the couple’s previous children were born in ________ (and not, say, in Beit Shemesh, etc.), their passports would have to be amended the next time they are renewed. American Citizen Services, Special Consular Services"

is illogical.

As State Dept. officialdom should know, the "West Bank" does not exist as a geo-political entity and never did. In fact, the 1947 UN Resolution referred to Judea and Samaria. So, even if there are some who perceive a logic in the regulation, and I do not recognize such, nevertheless its internal reasoning is based on May 15, 1948 as a cut-off date. However, the "West Bank" did not exist prior to that time. Actually, it only evolved in 1950 when the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, a state, incidentally, that launched a war of aggression against the nascent state of Israel on May 15, 1948, one-sidely declared an administrative entity they called the "West Bank".

If the State Dept. cannot bring itself to note "Israel" as the state in which "Jerusalem" is located, and furthermore, seeks to create a new political entity, the "West Bank", which never existed previously, I and many others protest this attitude.

The UN Partition Resoltuion 181, partitioning the Mandate territory, was quite explicit about boundaries and place names. "West Bank" does not appear whereas "Judea" and "Samaria" do. Those were the official British Mandate names.

So, until a future alteration in policy, I must insist that the State Dept. adopt those names. An American child born in Efrat or Hebron should be registered as "_______, Judea" and for a child born in Bethel, Ofra or Shiloh, registration should read "______, Samaria".

Moreover, any retroactive actions in previous instances where registration was not done in accordance with the above noted regulation, any amendments should be discounted.

Sincerely,

Yisrael Medad