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by Algemeiner Staff
Candidate Obama affectionately greets AIPAC President Lee Rosenberg, at the 2008 policy conference. Photo: Algemeiner.
After a reporter at a White House press briefing Monday pushed Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest on the issue of Mitt Romney’s comment that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, Earnest said Romney’s view is “a different position than this administration holds.”
“It’s the view of this administration that the capital [of Israel] is something that should be determined in final status negotiations between the parties,” Earnest said. “I’d remind you that that’s the position that’s been held by previous administrations, both Democratic and Republican.”
The Jerusalem Embassy Act, which calls for Jerusalem to be recognized as the capital of Israel, was passed by Congress in 1995 but has never been implemented. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and now Barack Obama have viewed it as a congressional infringement on the executive branch’s constitutional authority over foreign policy.
In June 2008, however, Obama himself—then an Illinois senator and presidential candidate—said at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference that Jerusalem “will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.”
Asked at a July 26 press briefing whether the Obama administration considers Jerusalem or Tel Aviv to be Israel’s capital, White House spokesman Jay Carney did not choose between the two cities, instead only responding that the administration’s position “has not changed.”
