President Barack Obama’s administration has had a difficult time deciding whether or not Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

Last Thursday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney refused to say which locality is, indeed, the principal city of Israel. Then, just one day after Mitt Romney stated that he believes Jerusalem is the capital, the White House decided to take a firm — and divergent — stance, claiming that Jerusalem isn’t currently (but could one day, based on negotiations, become) the nation’s capital.

Is your head spinning yet?

But let’s add some other factors into the mix. In 2008, when Obama was running for president, he made it clear that he believed then that the city was a part of Israel, as we noted in a previous post. The presidential hopeful made this stance so clear that he even contended that Jerusalem must remain Israel’s capital, even at the end of the negotiation process.

At the time, Obama said that any agreement with the Palestinians, “must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state with secure, recognized, defensible borders. And Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided.”

Watch the then-candidate discuss his previous stance, below: