Washington - Mrs Hillary Rodham Clinton, breaking with US official policy, told an Orthodox Jewish organisation based in New York that she considers Jerusalem "the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel".
She also promised that, if New Yorkers elected her to the US Senate, she would support a strong Israel and favour moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, she said.
She took the unorthodox policy positions in a letter to the Orthodox Union dated July 2nd. The Orthodox Union represents about 750 orthodox Jewish synagogues across the US.
A US official described Mrs Clinton's letter as "untimely", coming just as a new Israeli government has raised hopes of progress in Middle East talks.
US policy is that Israel and the Palestinians should decide the fate of Jerusalem in talks on "final status" issues, together with borders, refugees and Jewish settlements. US leaders have said they do not want to see the city again divided, as it was between 1948 and 1967, but they have never publicly accepted the Israeli view that it is the "eternal and indivisible" capital of the Jewish state.