Obama accuses Bush of political attack

WASHINGTON, May 15 (UPI) -- U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama Thursday accused U.S. President George Bush of launching a political attack on him.

Bush is in Israel and in a speech before the Knesset talked about the dangers of the politics of appeasement. Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino said the remarks speak for themselves and though they didn't cite Obama's positions directly, "he'll have to speak for himself as to what his policy is and you guys (the traveling press) can know it well."

"It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack," Obama said in a 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."

Obama has said he would engage in talks with Iran's leaders if elected. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

"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," Perino said during a press briefing in Israel.

The passage in Bush's speech before the Knesset to which Obama objected was: "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if we could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."