The campaigns are sparring over comments by Rev. Jesse Jackson arguing that Barack Obama’s foreign policy will mean an end to “decades of putting Israel’s interests first.”

According to a report in the NY Post today, Jackson told an audience at the World Policy Forum in Evian, France last week that the  “Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades” will lose influence under an Obama administration.

“Obama is about change,” Jackson added. “And the change that Obama promises is not limited to what we do in America itself. It is a change of the way America looks at the world and its place in it.”

Obama, who had some early trouble earning the trust of some Jewish voters on the issue of Israel, quickly distanced himself from the comments.

“Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. is not an adviser to the Obama campaign and is therefore in no position to interpret or share Barack Obama’s views on Israel and foreign policy,” Obama national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said in a statement. “As he has made clear throughout his career and throughout this campaign, Barack Obama has a fundamental commitment to a strong U.S.-Israel relationship … As president, he will ensure that Israel can defend itself from every threat it faces, stand with Israel in its quest for a secure peace with its neighbors, and use all elements of American power to end Iran’s illicit nuclear program.”

Jackson reportedly acknowledged that he is just an Obama “supporter”  but also described the Democratic nominee as a “neighbor or, better still, a member of the family.”

Meanwhile, the McCain campaign used the report to continue to draw questions about what it says is Obama’s thin record.

“Literally, nobody knows what Barack Obama’s policies would be if he were elected president, but it’s very concerning that people believe he will not be a friend to Israel.”

UPDATE–11am Wednesday:  JACKSON RESPONDS WITH STATEMENT BELOW:

Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

Responds to Distortions in NY Post Column

The recent column in no way represents my views on Middle East peace and security. The writer is selectively imposing his own point of view, and distorting mine.

I have a long held position of a two state solution to achieve peace in the Middle East. I stand forthrightly for the security and stability of Israel, its protection from any form of hostility, and a peaceful, non-violent resolution to co-existing with its Palestinian neighbors. I have advocated for peaceful, non-violent negotiation. This is a framework that all people who pursue peace and reconciliation embrace. Both presidential candidates embrace this approach to advance Middle East negotiations and the peace process. It is our national policy.

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Today the Obama campaign held a briefing for reporters traveling on Obama’s trip to the Middle East and Europe. In a conference room at the Four Seasons hotel in Amman, senior advisors spoke on background for a little less than an hour, discussing Obama’s motives and itinerary while abroad.

The presumptive Democratic nominee and Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE), who accompanied Obama on a Congressional Delegation trip to Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq, are scheduled to arrive in Jordan by V22 aircraft at 2:30pm, local time. After getting briefed and resting up, the senators will hold a 45-minute media avail on their CODEL at the historic Amman Citadel.

While he isn’t exactly a stranger to magazine covers, television news, and newspapers, go ahead and call it Obama week in the U.S. press. There are 40 journalists whose news outlets are paying thousands of dollars to cover Obama’s first foreign trip as candidate for president - and he will sit down with anchors from the five television networks who will make the overseas journey to conduct the interviews in person.

The purpose of this trip isn’t political, Obama’s advisors say, but the candidate stands to gain from the expected constant press coverage, which will come by way of numerous photo-ops with world leaders, press conferences, and one rally-like event in Berlin, where some tens of thousands are expected.

But the campaign denies the Germany event is a big political rally. One advisor explained, “It will not be a speech about campaign issues, he’s not going to address campaign issues in terms of other candidates, it is not a speech about American politics, and so it’s not a campaign event. We’re not trying to recruit support from the crowds that are coming.”

Rather, “The point of the outdoor rally is that the Senator wants to speak directly to our allies and to the people of Europe and the people of the world and it would be inconsistent to do that and try to limit the attendance for that event. There’s a great deal of interest in his visit. We want to accommodate that interest.”

The campaign told reporters today that Obama will not hold any fundraisers while he is abroad - despite the fact that the Democrat is wildly popular in Europe.

Read Obama’s itinerary after the jump.

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The Obama campaign held a conference today call to discuss the senator’s upcoming trip to the Middle East and Europe. According to the foreign press, Obama will arrive in Jordan early next week, but until now the campaign has refused to discuss any details of the trip on the record.

Several of Obama’s top foreign policy advisors were on today’s call to talk about the purpose of the trip and with whom the Illinois senator would meet on his trip to Jordan, Israel, Germany, France, and the UK. Included on that list: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Opposition Leader David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, King Abdullah of Jordan, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Chimon Perez, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

But the campaign continues to refuse to discuss the dates and locations of any of the planned stops, presumably for safety concerns, and will not say where the meeting with the Palestinian Authority leaders will take place.

According to advisor Susan Rice, Obama will exchange views with these leaders on issues critical to national and global security in order to deepen relationships and explore concretely a way to discuss cooperation on these challenges.

Rice added that “it’s important to note that it is not our intent to make policy or to negotiate, we won’t do so. There’s one President of the United States at any given time and we will certainly honor and respect that.” But, she said, the candidate may “underscore” the message to leaders that “stepped up U.S. contribution should be met with a stepped up NATO contribution to the extent possible” in Afghanistan.

The campaign is not calling this a campaign event - even though the candidate will be joined by at least 19 media outlets along the way. “The trip is not at all a campaign trip, a rally of any sort. It’s …a series of substantive meetings with our friends and our allies to talk about the common challenges that we face and the national security dangers for the 21st century,” Robert Gibbs said on the call.

In fact the only speech-like event the campaign will discuss is the much talked about Berlin event, where the candidate will “underscore our shared values and our shared goals” to the German people.

The German press originally reported the Democrat would speak at Brandenburg Gate, which then was quickly made off limits by the German government. Today the Obama campaign would not confirm or deny the latest speculations on where the speech may take place, only that they were looking for a location that “meets our needs and our German hosts’ needs and interests.”

The campaign declined to say how long this trip has been in the making, but said Senator Obama reached out to Secretary Rice about his trip and that the two had “a very productive conversation.” The campaign has been relying on help from US embassies in each of the countries they are planning to visit.

Barack Obama addressed the AIPAC conference this morning, where the tired presumptive Democratic nominee noted his “eventful night last night.” As the crowd let out a congratulatory cheer, Obama acknowledged his rival of sixteen months, Hillary Clinton, who was slated to speak following Mr. Obama’s speech.

“I want to publicly acknowledge Hillary Clinton for the outstanding race that she has run. She is a true friend of Israel, she is a great senator from New York, she is an extraordinary leader of the Democratic Party, and she has made history alongside me over the last sixteen months. So I’m very proud to have competed against her,” he said before launching into a lengthy speech on Israel and foreign policy.

Fresh of his victory, the candidate has been plagued by innuendoes and rumors, most notably in the form of emails, along the campaign that have painted him as Muslim and anti-Israel. Something the candidate has and will continue to try to knock down. “I know some provocative emails that have been circulating throughout Jewish communities across the country. A few of you may have gotten them. They’re filled with tall tales and dire warnings about a certain candidate for President.  all I want to say is – let me know if you see this guy named Barack Obama, because he sounds pretty scary.



 But if anyone has been confused by these emails, I want you to know that today I’ll be speaking from my heart, and as a true friend of Israel,” he began.

The candidate with a self-described “funny name” maintained that he fundamentally understands the Jewish tradition based on his unique background. “In many ways, I didn’t know where I came from. So I was drawn to the belief that you could sustain a spiritual, emotional and cultural identity. And I deeply understood the Zionist idea – that there is always a homeland at the center of our story,” he explained.

But the candidate’s positions have also raised red flags with some in the Jewish community. Many were angered when he said he would meet with leaders like Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a leader who has threatened Israel on numerous occasions. Obama’s speech was an opportunity for him to “address some willful mischaracterizations of my positions.” Along the way, Obama peppered his speech with phrases like “let me be clear” or “do not be confused” to try to paint himself as objectively in Israel’s corner.

“Contrary to the claims of some, I have no interest in sitting down with our adversaries just for the sake of talking. But as President of the United States, I would be willing to lead tough and principled diplomacy with the appropriate Iranian leader at a time and place of my choosing – if, and only if – it can advance the interests of the United States. That is my position, I want to be absolutely clear,” he said.

McCain, Obama maintained, is on the wrong side of the issue. “Senator McCain offers a false choice: stay the course in Iraq, or cede the region to Iran. I reject this logic because there is a better way. Keeping all of our troops tied down indefinitely in Iraq is not the way to weaken Iran – it is precisely what has strengthened it.”

For his part, Obama was well received by a crowd that has not always been quick to accept him. He got several standing ovations, including a sustained applause when he observed, “We must not allow the relationship between Jews and African Americans to suffer. This is a bond that must be strengthened. Together, we can rededicate ourselves to end prejudice and combat hatred in all of its forms. Together, we can renew our commitment to justice. Together, we can join our voices together, and in doing so make even the mightiest of walls fall down.”

It almost sounded like a concession. Hillary Clinton told a conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington today that support for the state of Israel is one of the proudest planks in the Democratic platform — and that Obama would continue that tradition.

“My support for Israel does not come recently or lightly. I know it is right in my head, in my heart and in my gut. And that is exactly the commitment we need in our next president - a Democratic president,” she said. “I know Senator Obama understands what is at stake here.”

“It has been an honor to contest these primaries with him. It is an honor to call him my friend, and let me be very clear — I know that Senator Obama will be a good friend to Israel,” she said.

Obama, who spoke before Clinton at the conference, has had his support for Israel questioned after several seemingly pro-Palestinian comments, including that no one has suffered more than the Palestinians in the conflict with Israel.

“I know that Senator Obama shares my view, that the next president must be ready to say to the world America’s position is unchanging, our resolve unyielding our stance nonnegotiable. The United States stands with Israel, now and forever,” Clinton continued.

As the crowd applauded, the New York Senator stood, jaw clenched, looking out over the audience. Her face seemed to say even more than her words — hinting that she’s reconciling herself to the fact that Obama will be the Democratic nominee.

Another clue: while she talked about what the next president needs to do to strengthen the Israeli-American relationship, she never once said what she would do in the White House or that she would be that next president.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. –Ridiculing the idea of negotiating with Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a “spectacle” that would embolden extremists, McCain jabbed Obama on Iran and Iraq before more than 7,500 members of the highly influential pro-Israel lobbyist group.

“We hear talk of a meeting with the Iranian leadership offered up as if it were some sudden inspiration, a bold new idea that somehow nobody has ever thought of before,” McCain told AIPAC members, adding that Obama is engaging in a “serious misreading of history.”

“It’s hard to see what such a summit with President Ahmadinejad would actually gain, except an earful of anti-Semitic rants, and a worldwide audience for a man who denies one Holocaust and talks before frenzied crowds about starting another,” he noted. “Such a spectacle would harm Iranian moderates and dissidents, as the radicals and hardliners strengthen their position and suddenly acquire the appearance of respectability.”

Instead, McCain called for a stepped international political and economic sanctions regime against the Iranian government and the country’s banks.

“Rather than sitting down unconditionally with the Iranian president or supreme leader in the hope that we can talk sense into them, we must create the real-world pressures that will peacefully but decisively change the path they are on,” McCain said, arguing that the U.S. should lead an coalition of “like-minded” nations in a sanctions effort if the UN Security Council fails to tighten the noose on the Iranians. He also called for a worldwide divestment campaign against Iran.

In touting the Senate bill passed last fall to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, he mocked Obama opposition to the legislation

“He opposed this resolution because its support for countering Iranian influence in Iraq was, he said, a ‘wrong message not only to the world, but also to the region.’ But here, too, he is mistaken. Holding Iran’s influence in check, and holding a terrorist organization accountable, sends exactly the right message — to Iran, to the region and to the world,” McCain said to a standing ovation.

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Barack Obama dropped by a Boca Raton synagogue today, where during his town hall meeting, he was asked about his relationship with Israel and the Jewish community - something that has plagued his candidacy as rumors over his religion have caused concern. As he wrapped up his prepared remarks, Obama invited “the tough questions” - which was exactly what he got.

The first questioner wondered why he didn’t change his name back to Barry - the name Obama went by as a child. Obama acknowledged the name sounds Muslim and said he wanted to clear up the matter. “My father was from Kenya and Barack actually interestingly enough means the same as Baruch. It means one who’s blessed. And the reason—the reason that that’s interesting is that it’s the same Semitic root. The same source. My father was basically agnostic as far as I can tell, and I didn’t know him. He left as I said when I was two years old. So I was raised by my mother who was from Kansas. And it’s true they called me Barry when I was young, but as I got older, I thought it was important to acknowledge this other side of my heritage and so I was called Barack,” he explained.

For good measure, he observed, “You’ve had a prime minister named Barack in Israel. It should be pretty familiar to this audience.” The crowd applauded.

Two questions later, Obama was asked about his connections to a pro-Palestine scholar named Rashid Khalidi as well as proof that he has pro-Israel friends and advisors. The questioner rambled on a bit and as the crowd got restless, Obama cut off the man as diplomatically as he could. “There’s a question in there that’s important. Let me respond to the question,” he said.

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President Bush seemingly waded into the ‘08 fray during a speech before the the Israeli parliament yesterday, causing a firestorm of back-and-forth between the three ‘08 contenders. The offending comment - “Some seem to believe we should negotiate with 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 of 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.”

While Bush didn’t name names (and the White House says the President was not specifically referring to Obama), of course it has been Barack Obama who has said on the campaign trail that he will meet with friends and foes - including Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Obama campaign quickly responded to Mr. Bush’s statement, saying it was “sad” that the president used his speech commemorating the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to “launch a false political attack.”

Later when John McCain “embraced” Bush’s statement, an Obama spokesman replied “It is the height of hypocrisy for John McCain to deliver a lofty speech about civility and bipartisanship in the morning and then embrace George Bush’s disgraceful political attack in the afternoon. Instead of delivering meaningful change, John McCain wants to continue George Bush’s irresponsible and failed Iran policy by refusing to engage in tough, direct diplomacy like Presidents from Kennedy to Reagan have done.”

Today, Obama responded with anger and forcefulness, while criticizing Bush’s “failed” policies abroad and hammering McCain for supporting them. “They’re trying to fool you. They’re trying to scare you. And they’re not telling the truth. And the reason is they can’t win a foreign policy debate on the merits, but it’s not gonna work. It’s not gonna work this time and it’s not gonna work this year,” Obama told voters in Watertown, South Dakota. “If George Bush and John McCain want a debate about protecting the United States of America, that’s a debate I’m happy to have, anytime, any place, and that is a debate that I will win, because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for,” he said.

As evidence, Obama cited what he sees as foreign policy failures implemented by the Bush Administration. “Our Iran policy is a complete failure right now and that’s the policy John McCain is running on. He has nothing to offer except the naïve and irresponsible belief that tough talk from Washington will somehow cause Iran to give up its nuclear program in support for terrorism. I’m running for president to change course, not to continue George Bush’s course,” he said to applause.

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Later at a press avail, Obama was asked if he took the White House’s word that President Bush was not referring to him. “For them to suggest that somehow they weren’t aimed – who’s this “some” that they were talking about? Is this some amorphous “some”? Or is this just a straw man that they were setting up? And if so, what was the purpose of the remarks? That’s being disingenuous,” he responded.

Of Obama’s South Dakota remarks, a McCain spokesman noted, “It was remarkable to see Barack Obama’s hysterical diatribe in response to a speech in which his name wasn’t even mentioned.”

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COLUMBIA, SC — Asked if he is prepared to take on Barack Obama today, John McCain didn’t pause.

“Oh I’m ready,” he told reporters at a press conference in South Carolina. “I’m ready to take to the American people the challenges of the issues we face. Whether it be raising your taxes as Senator Obama wants to do. Something like capital gains where 100 million Americans have an investment or have the government make the decisions on health care or the family or certainly issues such as national security.”

McCain continued his assault on Obama’s foreign policy vision in his second media availabilty in less than four hours.

“Senator Obama continues to say he would sit down and negotiate with the president of Iran who yesterday called the state of Israel a stinking corpse,” McCain said. “That’s a dramatic difference between my view of the relations with a state sponsor of terror that is exporting lethal explosive devices into Iraq killing Americans and I would not give them the respect or the ability to enhance their prestige by sitting down and talking to the head of the state sponsor of terrorism who repeats his country’s dedication to the extinction of the state of Israel.”

The Arizona Senator also commented on the escalating violence in Lebanon, condemning what he feels is Syrian interference in Lebanese affairs.

“The Syrians are obviously playing a role and would like to a reassert or increase their influence in Lebanon and its affairs,” McCain said. “I think that obviously pressure (has) to be brought to bear on Syria, who is the major motivator I think of a lot of their continued effort to gain control of Lebanon and continue the influence they have had for a long period of time. And I would recommend that we of course convene other and work with other nations who have an interest in Lebanon and peace in the region.”