By CHARLES HURT
May 16, 2008
WASHINGTON - Addressing Israel's parliament yesterday, President Bush blasted Barack Obama's proposal to negotiate with enemies - comparing it to the appeasement policy that did nothing to stop Adolf Hitler.
"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," Bush told the Knesset, referring to the calls by Democrats such as Obama and former President Jimmy Carter to meet with terror leaders.
"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush scoffed. "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.' "
To thunderous applause, the president concluded, "We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
The stinging remarks roiled the race for the White House and marked a sharp turn for the president, who has largely stayed well clear of involving himself in the contest to succeed him.
The White House denied Bush was singling out Obama, but the Democratic front-runner struck back quickly.
"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."
Republican John McCain said he agreed with Bush's statements, and used the opportunity to argue that Obama was showing "naivete and inexperience and lack of judgment" in his willingness to meet with America's foes.
churt@nypost.com
EDITORIAL: Bush, Obama And Terror
