An exchange between the State Department spokesman Ian Kelly and a journalist during a briefing on Monday clarified U.S. President Barack Obama's stand on Israel's status as a Jewish State but it is not clear whether Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supports the idea.

The transcript of the exchange between the spokesman and the journalist follows:

QUESTION: Does the Obama Administration endorse Netanyahu’s view that the Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state?

MR. KELLY: I know you’re focusing on the adjective there. We do think that, yes, the Palestinians need to recognize the right of Israel to exist, and I’ll just leave it at that.

QUESTION: But hold on a second. Do you – is the position of the Obama Administration that Israel should be defined as a Jewish state?

MR. KELLY: I’m going to let the President’s words stand. You know that yesterday he said that he was committed to the Jewish state of Israel. Senator [George] Mitchell said it. And I’ll just let it stand at that.

In September 2007, then U.S. Senator (NY-D) Hillary Clinton wrote in a position paper that "Israel's right to exist in safety as a Jewish state, with defensible borders and an undivided Jerusalem as its capital, must never be questioned." 

Since becoming Secretary of State, however, Clinton has studiously avoided using any phrase that might legitimize the status of Israel as a Jewish State.

No Mention of 'Natural Growth'

Obama did not choose to make a point of debating the issue of natural growth in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria following Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's recent speech, and it remains to be seen how U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell will follow up on the matter when he arrives in Jerusalem.

On June 4, Obama stated in his address to the Muslim world in Cairo, "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements… it is time for these settlements to stop."

Hillary Clinton also has made her position on natural growth abundantly clear, in a way that indicates a complete turnaround from the stance she took in 2004 as the junior senator representing the State of New York, with its millions-strong Jewish population. At that time, then-Senator Clinton had voted for a Senate resolution that endorsed the letter written by then-President George W. Bush to then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in which Bush said he would back Israel's retaining major Jewish population centers in Judea and Samaria in any final status agreement.

Last month, however, the State Department spokesman spent days dodging reporters' questions on whether in fact the Clinton, and by extension, the Obama administration, would recognize the letter written to Sharon by then-President Bush.

When at last the issue could not longer be avoided, Clinton herself responded during a joint May 27 news conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit. "There is no memorialization of any informal and oral agreements. If they did occur, which, of course, people say they did, they did not become part of the official position of the United States Government," she said. "And there are contrary documents that suggest that they were not to be viewed as in any way contradicting the obligations that Israel undertook pursuant to the Roadmap. And those obligations are very clear."

Clinton added that the United States does not recognize the legitimacy of any Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, regardless of status. "The president was very clear when Prime Minister Netanyahu was here. He wants to see a stop to settlements -- not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions," Clinton said. She dined with Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas that night.