Among the first buckets of cold water that might be tossed on Barack Obama’s presidency is a hawkish Israeli government shoud Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party win Israel’s upcoming elections. But as the headline to this Haaretz analysis piece puts it, Obama will star in Israel’s election campaigns. Now, Tzipi Livni recently came down against an American-Iranian dialogue [says Matt Eckel at FP Watch: “I must admit I’m a bit baffled here. . . . Livni is supposed to represent the moderate center in Tel Aviv.], and she also recently opposed outgoing PM Ehud Olmert’s Syrian peace track. So it’s hard to know exactly whether she would complement an Obama administration — that one would imagine is intent on making some progress on these various peace negotiations — very well either. But the Israeli elections will be an opportunity to see just how long Obama’s coattails really are. Interesting to see how Israeli voters will see it.
