LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The omission from the 2012 Democratic Party platform is in plain contrast to the statement offered by the party in 2008. "Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel. The parties have agreed that Jerusalem is a matter for final status negotiations. It should remain an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths."

Instead, the declaration for the U.S.'s support of Israel failed to mention of Jerusalem at all, including language about Palestinian refugees and the terrorist group Hamas.

Longstanding U.S. policy withholds recognition of the city as Israel's capital, while the U.S. embassy remains in Tel Aviv. When questioned about this status in July, White House press secretary Jay Carney would only say that the U.S. position hasn't changed.

The situation has left President Obama in a difficult balancing act between longstanding U.S. foreign policy objectives and electoral politics. The president's critics say he has been insufficiently supportive of Israel, and has had an awkward and difficult working relationship with the Israel's conservative government.

The president's unwary relationship with Israeli leadership became very apparent when the Democrats lost a safe House seat in a heavily Jewish district in New York City.

Several people involved in the writing the Democratic Party's platforms are reportedly at a loss for wards as to the omission of the status of Jerusalem.

Republicans seized the moment to highlight this glaring discrepancy after they discovered that boilerplate references to Jerusalem as Israel's capital apparent in Democratic platforms in the decades previously were no longer there.

"It is unfortunate that the entire Democratic Party has embraced President Obama's shameful refusal to acknowledge that Jerusalem is Israel's capital," Republican candidate Mitt Romney said in a statement. Romney called Jerusalem Israel's capital during his visit to the city in July.

In response, the Democratic Party said that the statements noted that it has never been the policy of any president, Republican or Democrat, to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

"The Obama Administration has followed the same policy towards Jerusalem that previous U.S. administrations of both parties have done since 1967," the statement said. "As the White House said several months ago, the status of Jerusalem is an issue that should be resolved in final status negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians -- which we also said in the 2008 platform."

The final-status negotiations appeared in the 2008 platform, but the plank also included a statement saying that "Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel."

So why did it disappear in 2012? "There was no discussion on it," said Robert Wexler, a member of the platform draft committee, and a chief Jewish surrogate for the Obama campaign. "It's a good question."

Wexler said that those shaping the platform were not focused on final-status issues, which include Jerusalem. The former Florida congressman said he did not know if there was a directive from the Obama campaign to avoid such issues, but said it was fair to "deduce" that there was.

The revelation comes as Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren released a statement denying a claim by DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz that he had said "what the Republicans are doing is dangerous for Israel.

"I categorically deny that I ever characterized Republican policies as harmful to Israel," Oren said. "Bipartisan support is a paramount national interest for Israel, and we have great friends on both sides of the aisle."

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