| Obama says Bush politically attacked him in Knesset address | |||
| By The Associated Press | |||
| Tags: Israel, Barack Obama | |||
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*-- --------------- Display Advertisement if Exists --------------------- *Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama accused President George W. Bush on Thursday of launching a false political attack with a comment about appeasing terrorists and radicals. The Illinois senator interpreted the remark as a slam against him but the White House denied that Bush's words were in any way directed at Obama, who has said as president he would be willing to personally meet with leaders of regimes the United States has deemed rogue. We have 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. Responding with a statement, the Obama campaign seized on Bush's remarks even as it was unclear to whom Bush was referring. "It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 6Oth anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack," Obama said in the statement. "George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel." The White House said Bush's comment wasn't a reference to Obama. "It is not," press secretary Dana Perino told reporters in Israel. "I would think that all of you who cover these issues and have for a long time have known that there are many who have suggested these types of negotiations with people that the president, President Bush, thinks that we should not talk to. I understand when you're running for office you sometimes think the world revolves around you. That is not always true. And it is not true in this case." Obama, citing past U.S. diplomacy with the Soviet Union and China, has said that as president he would personally negotiate with Iran and offer economic incentives and a chance for peaceful relations if Iranian leaders would forgo their pursuit of nuclear weapons and their support of terrorists. At the same time, he has said he would strongly reject Iran's development of nuclear weapons, its anti-Semitic rhetoric and terrorist support |
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תוקן על ידי רודי12 ב- 15/05/2008 21:29:10