IF this is true, I find it outrageous that Pope Francis can’t find a spare half hour or thereabout to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu!
…Senior officials in Jerusalem said that when the Prime Minister's Office made the announcement last Wednesday of the supposed meeting, no actual meeting had been set.
The Vatican found out from media outlets about Netanyahu's arrival in Rome and that an apparent meeting was scheduled. In recent days the PMO has scrambled to avoid the embarrassment and somehow find a way to make the meeting to take place.
The issue even reached National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror, who exerted heavy pressure on foreign minister director general Raphael Barak and Israel's ambassador to the Vatican Zion Evrony.
Netanyahu's office even tried to go around the foreign ministry and Evrony and reach the Vatican another route, but to no avail. On Sunday, the Vatican officially informed the Israeli ambassador that Netanyahu would not meet with the Pope.
The Italian press, including the Catholic Press, is not saying much at all. For example, from Corriere Della Sera:
E' stato rinviato l'incontro fra Papa Francesco e Benyamin Netanyahu, che doveva avvenire durante la visita a Roma del premier israeliano. Lo hanno detto all'ANSA fonti politiche in Israele. Le fonti hanno precisato che l'incontro con il Pontefice avra' comunque luogo 'in un'altra data'. Sulle motivazioni del rinvio non sono state fornite per ora spiegazioni. Confermati invece gli incontri di a Roma con Enrico Letta, martedi', e con il segretario di Stato Usa John Kerry, mercoledi'.
Quick and dirty summary: sources say the meeting was postponed but will be scheduled at some (undetermined) date in the future.
What does O'Malley think? It could have been a snub, but that isn't his style. And you can't reasonably attribute some anti-Semitic rationale to this, as Begoglio has ALWAYS had a good relationship with the Jewish people in Buenos Aires...and, so far, in Rome.
But, hey, if you want to be offended, by all means have at it. There is too little information here for me to render any kind of a judgement one way or the other. The source that lines up with Likud is reporting that Netanyahu is offended..and states that as a fact. The source that lines up with Labor is reporting that Netanyahu made a huge faux pas. Big surprise there. The Vatican isn't going to say anything about it, particularly if Bibi was responsible...as they wouldn't want to embarrass him. The secular Italian press is treating it as a non-event (and, believe me, some of the Italian papers would love nothing better than to embarrass the Vatican).
So, you decide.