We arrived in Israel the day after American voters elected Barak Obama President of the United States of America. To no ones surprise Israel's media is Obama centric and Kadima's Tzipi Livni is trying to convince voters (Israel's national elections are beginning to heat up) that she is the best leader to work with the Obama Administration.

Livni lets this be known by appearing, for the first time in this General Election campaign, on national television. Livni said she is best suited to rise to the challenge of bringing peace.

But it turns out that her Likud rival Benjamin Netanyahu is the one who has met Obama more than once and has established a respectful relationship with the President-elect.

In 2007, before Obama was a household name he met with Bibi. As a participant in this private meeting said, "It was a meeting between an opposition leader and a United States Senator, but we knew it was really a meeting between a possible future President and a likely future Prime Minister of Israel."

In this meeting and their meeting in Jerusalem during Obama's historic tour in 2008, Obama and Bibi hit it off on a personal level. Obama said that he did not have any pre-conceived notions about how to bring about peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Bibi argued that the stalemate over issues like Jerusalem and the West Bank should not be allowed to stop the development of a working relationship between Israel and the Palestinians. He talked to Obama about building business enterprises inside and nearby Palestinian communities so that Palestinians could start the development of business enterprises that are outside of Israel and in their own communities. This would make economic prosperity for the Palestinians a reality whether a peace settlement is reached or not.  This dynamic new initiative perked Obama's interest.

In their first meeting Obama declared that a nuclear Iran was not acceptable. And then he asked Bibi what he thought should be done about Iran. Bibi asked him to join the effort to stop investing in Iran. Obama responded by sponsoring Congressional legislation on this policy.

The chemistry between Bibi and Obama has been good. Lets pray that it continues.