WASHINGTON - It's kind of a novelty for the Bush administration: A Middle Eastern arena, and it nonetheless favors stability over revolution, continuity over change. Here is also an opportunity to refute allegations that are widespread in the world, that the president of the United States is actually a Likudnik.

Between the Likud of Benjamin Netanyahu, or Silvan Shalom, or Limor Livnat, or even Shaul Mofaz, and Ariel Sharon's new centrist party - Bush opts for the center. And even this, it must be admitted, is a move rightward compared to the stance of previous administrations on the eve of elections in Israel. After all, nearly every administration - Republican and Democrat alike - prefered working with Labor governments, not those of Likud, and cheered when the latter was defeated.

Bill Clinton's administration wanted to work with Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak, but was disappointed by Netanyahu's election and very glad to see him go. The Bush Sr. administration worked vigorously to oust Yitzhak Shamir. With Ronald Reagan, the preference was for Peres over Menachem Begin, Shamir, and most of all Sharon. Jimmy Carter was surprised and a little startled when the 1977 elections issued him a new, seemingly inflexible interlocutor in the form of Begin. Their first conversation was a tad chilly, though Carter didn't score a great success with Rabin, either.

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Every time the regime changes in Israel, the Americans try to locate a new opportunity for exerting influence. On July 4, 1963, even before he could organize his government, Levi Eshkol found a letter on his desk from then-president John Kennedy - "one of the most hostile in the history of letters of congratulation," as Warren Bass described it in his book on Kennedy's relationship with Israel. Kennedy hoped to persuade Eshkol where he had failed with Ben-Gurion, and to bring about increased monitoring of the secret project in Dimona. Half a year later, after Kennedy was assassinated, it was Israel that caught a break arising from the change of government in the U.S. Lyndon Johnson was far more easygoing in his approach to the Israeli enterprise.

But, over the past 30 years, Israeli governments have changed at a faster rate than American administrations. It's a matter of political system; maybe also temperament. Clinton worked with four prime ministers, Bush Sr. with two, Ronald Reagan with three, Carter with two. The current President Bush has been extremely fortunate - it's the third election and he's still expecting the same prime minister, who has already learned the most important lesson of Israeli foreign policy: Don't surprise Washington.

Israel will therefore try to get the grant now that it requested in return for the disengagement; the administration, which is laboring under debt, will try not to disappoint. The more vulnerable Sharon appears, the greater his chances of bringing his voters the handsome gift "for Negev development." That is the topic with which he also chose to conclude the present chapter in his joint work with Shimon Peres, and not by chance.

American administrations choose the Labor Party - but not this time. Amir Peretz is not known to the administration and does not seem to its officials at this time like the appropriate leader to hold the reins of government. That could change, of course. Some of them have developed an immediate distrust, highly natural, in the face of a leader who, at least ostensibly, maintains economic positions that are uncommon in America. "So what is he actually?" one public figure asked here this week with slight abhorrence. "A socialist?"

Nevertheless, if Sharon wins, the Americans will want to see him forming a coalition with the parties on the left. Not because they believe in the Oslo process, as Peretz does, or want to see an immediate concession from Israel. They will prefer such a coalition out of a hope that in future, when the opportunity arises, it will be more amenable to negotiations, easier to maneuver.

In the meantime, from an American perspective, the elections in Israel, interesting as they might be, are merely a footnote to the political process overtaking the Middle East. And if you want to rank American priorities, you can do so by date: First of all the elections in Iraq, which will have the greatest impact on the American president's political standing; then the elections in the Palestinian Authority - which, as usual, will also bear no small potential for influence on the results in Israel; and only afterward Sharon-Peretz-Netanyahu. It's an election campaign that, barring any astounding surprises, does not present cause for particular concern - or signal a breakthrough. Here, at last, the cliche beloved by the spokesmen applies: "An internal Israeli matter," and apparently nothing more.