Gone were the track suit, the back-slapping and the wise-cracking, all part of Ehud Olmert’s casual demeanor when he used to fly to the United States for White House talks and stand in the back of a chartered El Al plane, fielding questions from the travelling press.

His successor as Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, managed the media very differently this week during his first visit to the White House since taking office on March 31.

It began with a meet-and-greet on the flight to Washington and an admonishment from Netanyahu’s spokesmen that the prime minister would not be answering any questions. ”Bibi”, in a dark business suit, and his wife Sara walked down the aisle and shook hands with each and every reporter. Testing the “no-question” rule drew a “no comment” along with a firm handshake.

With Netanyahu at odds with U.S. President Barack Obama over Palestinian statehood, a cornerstone of Washington’s Middle East policy,  shifting the media focus to common ground appeared to be part of a game plan for message management. For Netanyahu, that meant getting the point across back home that, in his words, he and Obama saw “eye-to-eye” on the need to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.

Just hours after landing in Washington, Netanyahu sent his national security adviser, Uzi Arad, to speak to the travelling press in time for the evening TV news in Israel. The prime minister, he said, would stress in his talks with Obama the next day the need for urgency in dealing with Iran.

Score one for Netanyahu when at their meeting on Monday – preceded by preparatory talks between the prime minister’s top advisers and Obama’s team on finding points of agreement — the president for the first time set a rough timetable, of about a year, for his diplomatic outreach to Iran.

After the Oval Office talks, Israeli and foreign media reporters who accompanied Netanyahu to Washington gathered at Blair House, the official U.S. guest house where he was staying, for a briefing by the prime minister.

Again, Bibi was all business.

“Let’s have each reporter sitting around the table here introduce himself to the prime minister before we start the briefing,” his spokesman suggested affably.

“No need,” Netanyahu shot back, unsmiling and shuffling a stack of index cards that apparently contained talking points. “We all know each other.”

No recordings are allowed at the briefings. To ensure Netanyahu’s message of agreement with Obama on Iran got through in his own voice to radio and television audiences in Israel, his aides reserved a room in the Capitol where he could speak in Hebrew to microphones after his meetings on Tuesday with Congressional leaders.

“The prime minister will make a brief statement. There will be no questions,” his spokesman said.

And again addressing Israelis directly, without interruption from reporters eager to ask him about differences with Obama on Middle East peacemaking, Netanyahu stood in front of microphones on the tarmac at Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion airport after arriving home. Israel Radio carried his words live.

Netanyahu made his statement, this time focusing on what he described as another area of agreement with Obama, on widening the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to include Arab countries. When he was done, a reporter called out a question. Netanyahu just walked away.