Barack Obama fired back at President Bush during a town hall meeting in South Dakota today over remarks the commander in chief made yesterday to the Israeli Knesset in which he seemed to suggest Obama's foreign policy was akin to Nazi appeasers before World War II.

Obama chided the President for using Israel's 60-year anniversary as a platform for domestic political argument, and used it as an example of why he thinks there needs to be a dramatic change in the leadership of the United States.

"He accused me and other Democrats of wanting to negotiate with terrorists, and said we were appeasers, no different from people who appeased Adolf Hitler," Obama said of Bush. "Now that's exactly the kind of appalling attack that has divided our country and alienated us from the rest of the world."

Obama later attempted to silence critics who have questioned his toughness when it comes to foreign policy and military issues: "I want to be perfectly clear with George Bush and John McCain, and with the people of South Dakota," said Obama. "If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting the United States of America, that is a debate I am happy to have anytime, anyplace. And that is a debate that I will win because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for."

Obama also hit McCain for agreeing with Bush. "McCain jumped on a call with a bunch of bloggers and said that I wasn't fit to protect this nation that I love because I wanted to sit down and negotiate with tough diplomacy with countries like Iran," said Obama. "He accused me of not being fit to protect this nation, this nation that my grandfather served in World War II, this nation that's given me everything that I have. So much for civility."

"John McCain has repeated this notion that I am prepared to negotiate with terrorists," Obama said. "I have never said that. I have been adamant about not negotiating with Hamas, a terrorist organization that has vowed to destroy Israel. In fact the irony is, yesterday just as John McCain was making these attacks, a story broke that he was actually guilty of the exact same thing that he was accusing me of.

"That's the kind of hypocrisy that we've been seeing in our foreign policy, the kind of fear peddling, fear mongering, that has prevented us from actually making us safe. They're trying to fool you, they're trying to scare you. And they're not telling the truth. And the reason is because they cannot win a foreign policy debate on the merits. But it's not going to work. And it's not going to work this time, and it's not going to work this year."