The Jerusalem Basic Law (1980/2000) and the Jerusalem Embassy Act (1990/95): A comparative investigation of Israeli and US legislation on the status of Jerusalem
OA Version
Citation
M Zank. 2016. "The Jerusalem Basic Law (1980/2000) and the Jerusalem Embassy Act (1990/95): A comparative investigation of Israeli and US legislation on the status of Jerusalem." Israel Studies 21.3 (2016), 20-35.
Abstract
This essay, written from a religious studies perspective, compares two
pieces of largely
symbolic legislation, the Israeli 1980 Jerusalem Basic Law and the US 1995 Jerusalem
Embassy Act, situating them in their respective historical contexts and raising questions
about the dynamic of legislative acts that exceed the intention of both those who introduced
these bills and the legislators who passed them into law. I argue that these laws indicate the
power of broadly-shared public sentiments in modern politics and policy-making, a power
that has the potential of overwhelming more
pragmatic and cautious approaches to public
law.