Meanwhile in Israel, a visiting President Bush continued to take part in Israel’s sixtieth anniversary celebrations. Speaking before the Israeli parliament, Bush took a swipe at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama,comparing his call to negotiate with Iran to the appeasement of Hitler before the Second World War.

President Bush: “Some seem to believe 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 only I could 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.”

In a statement, Obama’s campaign denounced Bush’s remarks, calling them an “unprecedented political attack on foreign soil.”