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This is a matter of character. I didn't post this article because of the references to Pope Pius XII, since it's an issue which invariably takes these threads off track, which is Obama's character, and as President, America's.
I received my own lesson this week about how to treat those with whom you sharply disagree. I was in Italy to promote the Italian translation of one of my books. Gary Krupp, the New York-based Jewish papal knight whom I had sharply criticized for defending Pius XII, went out of his way to get me invited to the Vatican to see documents relating to Piuss pontificate.When I arrived, just one week before Good Friday, although the Vatican was under siege with press reports of pedophile priests, Monsignor Livio Poloniato, who works in the cardinal secretary of states office, gave me hours of his time to show me around. Here I was, an unrelenting critic for over a decade of a pope whom the Holy See is seeking to canonize. Yet the high-ranking priests I met could not have been friendlier. Everyone I met showed kindness and warmth. The visit didnt change my view of Pius XII, whom I continue to view as guilty of the foremost moral omission of the twentieth century in refusing to even once speak out against the Holocaust. But it did get me thinking.
I contrasted the warm welcome accorded a papal critic with President Obamas disdainful treatment of Netanyahu. If the reports are true and Obama got up and left in the middle of their meeting, derisively telling him he was going to have dinner with his family and adding get back to me if you have anything new, then as an American I am ashamed of our presidents behavior. As a Jew I am scandalized by his contempt. Yes, having dinner with your kids is important, but to use your kids as an excuse to treat a guest like garbage is repellant.
Gary Krupp and the Vatican officials provide an fine example not only of how you treat those with whom you disagree, but how you bring them around to your point of view, to the extent you can.
Personally, I wouldn't extend that respect to a tyrant, which appears to be how Obama views the Prime Minister of Israel. With contempt, whether for a Jew or a capitalist I don't know, probably both.