Ballad of Gordon and Barack

JERUSALEM -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will become his country's first head of state to address the Knesset when he speaks there Monday -- not even Margaret Thatcher received such an honor -- but his visit is already being upstaged by an aspirant chief executive.

The Israeli media are already displaying far more interested in Barack Obama's scheduled arrival on Tuesday than anything Brown will have to say from a far more prestigious podium than the photo-op tours and meetings extended to Obama.

"Visiting Israel on the same week that Obama is expected to arrive is like being the opening act for the Beatles," columnist Anshel Pfeffer explained in Ha'aretz.

That analogy will collapse entirely by the end of the week, when Brown hosts Obama back at 10 Downing Street.