Much of the political news over the last few days has involved a tide of endorsements of Barack Obama for president by Democratic superdelegates, and increasingly, by previous supporters of Hillary Clinton. The big endorsement is due on Saturday, by Clinton herself.

But one bit of news concerns a de-endorsement of Obama that will be greeted with considerable joy in the presumptive Democratic nominee's HQ: by the Palestinian group Hamas, motivated by Obama's speech yesterday to a gathering of the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC). Breaking no new ground, Obama repeated his support for a Palestinian state but only on condition of maintaing Israel's character as a Jewish state, within "secure and defensible borders." His exact language, however, seemed to enrage Hamas:

“Obama’s comments have confirmed that there will be no change in the U.S. administration’s foreign policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict,” Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters in Gaza.

“The Democratic and Republican parties support totally the Israeli occupation at the expense of the interests and rights of Arabs and Palestinians,” he said.

“Hamas does not differentiate between the two presidential candidates, Obama and McCain, because their policies regarding the Arab-Israel conflict are the same and are hostile to us, therefore we do have no preference and are not wishing for either of them to win,” Zuhri said.

The earlier "endorsement" of Obama in April by Hamas "adviser" Ahmed Yousef has been a staple of Republican attack emails and McCain fundraising missives. It will be interesting to see if these attacks now stop.

Meanwhile, Obama's nomination victory was greeted with considerable excitement just about everywhere else on the planet. Karl Blumenthal has a good sampling of the global reaction at OpenLeft.