The Sun's article about the Supreme Court ruling striking down the law requiring passports to record Israel as the birthplace of citizens born in Jerusalem quotes Goucher College's Zahi Khamis as saying that "Jerusalem is an occupied city" which "should not be recognized as a proper part of Israel" ("Supreme Court backs president's foreign policy powers in passport dispute," June 8).
Mr. Khamis' comment ignores not only the 3,000 year continuous presence of Jews in Jerusalem but the Arab rejectionism which doomed the United Nation's 1947 plan to internationalize Jerusalem, the Arab aggression against the newly-declared state of Israel which caused the division of Jerusalem in 1948 and the Arab intolerance during the 19 years that Jordan occupied the Old City of Jerusalem which resulted in the destruction of synagogues and cemeteries and the denial of Jewish access to the Western Wall.
All of these factors render it just and proper that Israel maintain exclusive sovereignty over an undivided Jerusalem and that this sovereignty be recognized by the United States.
Jay Bernstein, Baltimore