What does "change" mean for Israel?

NEW HAMPSHIRE - Mitt Romney was approaching the end of his speech to about 200 people in Nashua's Rotary Club on Monday. The polls had given John McCain a slight edge as Republican frontrunner, but only a slight one. Romney ended with a story: For his 60th birthday, his son gave him a set of car keys. He thought it would be a new car, perhaps a Porsche, but it turned out to be a 1962 Rambler, a vintage car. When he sat in it, he realized how much cars had changed over the decades. Steering wheels, for example. They used to be much bigger. That's how it goes: When you don't change, you go broke.

Romney is suddenly the candidate of change. They're all candidates of change. Barack Obama marked the course and the others joined him, some with whoops of enthusiasm and others dragging their heels and going along because they have to. America wants change, and the candidates are promising to bring it. The details still need to be worked out. Speaking in Derry, a few hours after Romney, Rudy Giuliani repeated what has become his slogan of late. "Change can be bad or good," he reminded his audience.

Israel is not necessarily at the center of the necessary change, but it will be affected by it. The U.S. elections, which were supposed to be a comfortable, familiar process, have become a strange riddle for the Israeli decision maker. The contest between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republicans Giuliani or McCain is a contest between figures who are familiar to Jerusalem. But some of the other leading candidates are more difficult to decipher. Barack Obama has no history of relations with Israel, and even his fellow Republicans find it hard to figure out Mike Huckabee.

On Monday two Israeli officials ran around New Hampshire in a frenzy. Daniel Meron, Minister of Congressional Affairs at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and Nadav Tamir, the Boston-based Consul General of Israel to New England, went from one election event to another, listening, shaking hands, asking questions. Among others, they met with Huckabee, the big Republican winner in Iowa. It was a very friendly meeting. Israel is important - the most important - he told them, recalling his nine visits to the country. That evening Meron said he was not concerned: All of the candidates who have any chance of being elected believe in continuing the special relationship between the United States and Israel.

Nevertheless, the winds of sweeping change raise some questions: What will the approach of the elected officials be toward Iran? How will they want to advance the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue? In simpler times Israel could have presumed that the pendulum would swing between the current policy, that of President George W. Bush, and that of his predecessor, Bill Clinton. Is there a third option? The Obama camp has ties to a few types of advisers - some who look at Israel with sympathetic eyes, as well as others who cast a colder glance at it. It's hard to say which one the candidate will listen to. It's even more difficult in the case of Huckabee, who has not yet put together his team of advisers.

A week ago, when Clinton rose to give her speech acknowledging defeat in Iowa, the cameras focused on the people surrounding her. Former president Bill Clinton; his secretary of state, Madeleine Albright; his favorite general, Wesley Clark. The American media stressed the extent to which they were "has-beens," but to the Israeli viewer the image sent a message of reassurance: This is who we are, the nice people from the 1990s.

As it turns out, Americans are not thrilled by this message. It is hard to believe, but Israel may very well have to get accustomed soon not merely to a new leader, but to someone who will be a mystery to it. Of course, it would not be the first time: Clinton himself was just such a mystery when he was elected. And on the day Bush arrives in Israel for his first visit, one may recall the slight panic that gripped Israel when he was elected, because of his father's record.

We can recall it, but also relax. Israel's fate may be affected by the whims of a voter in Derry, New Hampshire. But that voter has been proven to possess a tolerable measure of judgment, in most cases.