WASHINGTON (EJP)---White House Democratic front-runner Barack Obama has accused President George W. Bush of launching a "sad" and "false" political attack on him by saying, in his address to the Israeli parliament on Thursday, that those in favour of negotiating with terrorists and radicals are like Nazi appeasers.
"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals," Bush told the Israeli Knesset.
"We've heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
The White House later denied Bush's words in a speech to the Knesset were directed at Obama, who has argued in favour of meeting with leaders of U.S. adversaries like Iran, Cuba and North Korea.
But a firestorm quickly hit the presidential election campaign, drawing angry retorts from Democrats who called the president's comments "unprecedented."
"It's sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false personal attack. Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power -- including tough, principled and direct diplomacy -- to pressure countries like Iran and Syria," Barack Obama replied.
John McCain, the Republican party's nominee-in-waiting, used the opportunity to attack his likely rival for wanting to talk to radical leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"This does bring up an issue we will be discussing with the American people and that is: why does Barack Obama want to sit down with a state sponsor of terrorism? It shows naivete and inexperience to say he wants to sit down across the table from an individual who leads a country that says Israel is a stinking corpse, that's dedicated to the extinction of the state of Israel."
McCain raised hackles last week when he said Obama is the "favoured" presidential candidate of Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian movement which took control of the Gaza Strip last year.
Obama, who's ruled out talking to organizations like Hamas, has stepped up efforts to reach out to American Jews who may doubt his support for Israel.
Backing of prominent US Jews
On Thursday, he gained the backing of four more Democratic leaders to take him closer to shutting Hillary Clinton out of the race to the party's nomination.
All four are Democratic "superdelegates" who can cast their convention vote for the presidential nominee of their choice.
The most prominent is California Congressman Henry Waxman, who as chairman of the House of Representatives oversight committee has waged war on alleged wrongdoing in the administration of President George W. Bush.
Both Waxman and another of the quartet, Congressman Howard Berman, are leaders in the US Jewish community, and their support could help Obama fend off questions about the level of his commitment to Israel's security.
"Senator Obama's vision for change has inspired tens of millions of Americans. And he's also proved that he has the experience, judgment, integrity and toughness to bring real reform to Washington," Waxman said in a statement.
"He will be an extraordinary president, and I look forward to working with him to make his vision for change the new reality in Washington," he said.
According to RealClearPolitics.com, Obama now has the support of 1,889 Democratic convention delegates to Clinton's 1,719, considerably closer to the winning line of 2,025.
