So, you’re suggesting the Pope should have ignored the issue of reconciling the SSPX and left the excommunications in place, just to not look bad?
I think that a wiser course would have been to issue the reconciliation and a general excommunication of Holocaust deniers at the same time. And I think that the knee-jerk defense of the Vatican and pile-on to the Rabbinate demonstrated by some of the laity here doesn't help Jewish-Christian relations, and needs to be called out.
Understand, I like the current Pontiff. I do think that he made a misstep. I also think that if the Rabbinate responded any less strongly, the concerns of the Jewish people on this matter would be swept under the rug with a few platitudes.
Shalom.