Barack Obama faced fresh controversy yesterday over the anti-Israel views propagated by his former pastor even as he was being welcomed to New York by Michael Bloomberg, the city's Jewish Mayor.

The disclosure of articles published by the Rev Jeremiah Wright's church newsletter threatened to overshadow his speech outlining his economic plans. The articles included a column by the Hamas leader, Mousa Abu Marzook, which asked: “Why should any Palestinian recognise the monstrous crimes carried out by Israel's founders and continued by its deformed modern apartheid state?”

Mr Obama swiftly denounced the decision to reprint the article but faced further embarrassment over comments from Mr Wright, quoted in another church magazine, which referred to Italians as “garlic noses”.

The presence alongside him of Mr Bloomberg prompted speculation that he could yet help Mr Obama fix his growing problems at least with the Jewish vote, an important constituency and source of Democratic campaign donations. Some even suggested that the popular mayor could be a vice-presidential running-mate.

Mr Bloomberg – who had been eyeing an independent run for the presidency himself – stopped short of endorsing Mr Obama but did compare him to “another man from Illinois”, Abraham Lincoln.

Mr Obama praised the mayor for his “extraordinary leadership”, adding: “I share your determination to bring this country together to finally make progress for the American people.” Although there was spate of opinion polls showing Mr Obama has largely survived the row over Mr Wright, there appears to be growing resistance to his candidacy among certain ethnic groups including poor white voters.

Some Democrat leaders have begun advocating a gathering of the party's elite super-delegates to decide whether Mr Obama or Hillary Clinton will be the nominee, before blood spills on to the convention floor this summer.

Mr Obama says that he is open to the idea but Mrs Clinton shows no sign of giving up before the summer. Some of her big donors have written a threatening letter to Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, criticising her view that super-delegates should not seek to overturn the will of voters.

Bill Clinton hinted at more bruising weeks to come, saying: “If a football player doesn't want to get tackled ... he shouldn't put the pads on.” Mr Obama responded by saying: “There is a line that can be crossed, when you stop focusing on the American people's business and it becomes just sport, it becomes all about winning.”

This prompted a withering attack by Mrs Clinton's spokesman, Phil Singer, who said: “Considering that Senator Obama and his campaign are advancing a character assassination effort against Hillary, [his] musings on the politics of personal destruction are the height of hypocrisy.”

Both candidates managed for once to turn some of their fire on Mr McCain, with Mr Obama saying that the Republican nominee's do-nothing policy on the housing crisis was consistent with his “determination to run for George Bush's third term”. Mr McCain said that the Democrats were both liberals seeking “big government programmes that sock it to taxpayers”.

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