Is it really better for Israel if Ahmedinejad is elected?

Maybe it's that I have the perspective of an American, not an Israeli, but I am finding it very odd how little coverage there is of Iran in the Israeli press and radio. I've been listening to Reshet Bet (the news station of Israel Radio) and most of the news and discussion is about internal Israeli issues. I would expect this at normal times, but these are not normal times. Last night I watched the Channel 1 news, and the reporting on Iran was very superficial. Iran was not the first news item, which I expected it to be. And some of the analyses that I've read in the Israeli press strike me as truly misguided, for example the article by Amos Harel in Haaretz a couple of days ago:

And in this case, paradoxically, it seems that from Israel's point of view the victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is actually preferable. Not only because "better the devil you know," but because the victory of the pro-reform candidate will paste an attractive mask on the face of Iranian nuclear ambitions.

So it's better for Israel that Iran be led by a Holocaust-denying antisemite than by someone whom the majority of Iranians believe would improve their lives? At least Aluf Benn, in yesterday's Haaretz, had something more sensible to say:

The prize for this week's most stupid remark has to go to the officials, officers and experts who described Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the candidate Israel prefers to win the election in Iran, and were even happy he did. It is hard to think of a more blatant manifestation of the narrow horizons of Israeli strategic thinking.