Barry and Benjamin

The nytimes is again focusing on Benjamin Netanyahu, recently tapped to perhaps form the next Israeli government:

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud Party leader chosen Friday to form Israel's next government, likes to tell a story about his meeting last summer in Jerusalem with President Obama, who was then still the Democratic candidate.

As it was ending Mr. Obama pulled Mr. Netanyahu aside from their aides to a corner of the room in the King David Hotel.

“You and I have a lot in common,” Mr. Obama said, according to Mr. Netanyahu’s account. “I started on the left and moved to the center. You started on the right and moved to the center. We are both pragmatists who like to get things done.”

Whether that turns out to be an accurate assessment will determine much of what happens in the American-Israeli relationship in the next couple of years and in efforts to make progress on Middle East peace.

But what is almost as noteworthy is that Mr. Netanyahu tells the story with pride and a kind of endorsement. Although he is a hawkish man of the right and runs the largest conservative party in Israel, he considers himself a pragmatist.

Though the nytimes article doesn't draw it out, this is a pretty brilliant strategy. One of the most potent criticisms of a Netanyahu-led government is that he would not have the nearly unconditional support (at least publicly) that Israel enjoyed under Bush. So the argument goes: a narrow, right-wing government, lacking American support, would undoubtedly fail.

In one story, Netanyahu associates himself with hope and change (campaign/president-elect Obama), while capitalizing on Obama's own transformation into a pragmatist (once sworn in), and simultaneously attempts to assert his powerful connections--both political and personal--to the American goverment.

So, in his own telling, perhaps the powerful (left-wing) American patron would support a right-wing goverment?

Footnote: And this is not the first time Netanyahu has stressed the Obama connection:

Click on the Russian-language version of the campaign Web site of Benjamin Netanyahu, the conservative Likud leader running for prime minister of Israel, and up pops a picture of him with Barack Obama. On the Hebrew version, Mr. Obama is not pictured. But he is, in fact, everywhere.

The colors, the fonts, the icons for donating and volunteering, the use of videos, and the social networking Facebook-type options — including Twitter, which hardly exists in Israel — all reflect a conscious effort by the Netanyahu campaign to learn from the Obama success.