BFF

Bibi: Mitt and I Aren't That Close

Counters public perception.

Mitt Romney and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are often described as close friends, their lives having intersected are various points since they first met at the Boston Consulting Group in 1976. And while the U.S. presidential candidate may like to emphasize the closeness of their relationship—-claiming that they even speak "in shorthand" to one another—Bibi suggests the BFF narrative might be a bit exaggerated. "We did not know each other that well. He was the whiz kid. I was just in the back of the room," Netanyahu said in a recent Time magazine interview. Netanyahu insists that he's only seen Mitt a few times over the years and just once this year when they met for 10 minutes in Washington and chatted mostly about Iran.