Mitt Romney, Shelly Yachimovich Meeting Cancelled During Israel Trip

Romney cancelled a scheduled meeting with the head of Israel's leading liberal party at the last minute during his trip to Jerusalem Sunday.

The meeting, with the Labor party leader Shelly Yachimovich, had reportedly been planned for months, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz.

At the time the meeting was scheduled, Yachimovich was also serving as the head of the political opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a position somewhat akin to House Speaker John Boehner or Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. But a series of political realignments in recent weeks has left the political opposition in the hands of the centrist Kadima party.

Haaretz reported that Romney only informed Yachimovich's office he would be skipping the meeting on Sunday morning, two hours before the powwow was set to take place. (He did meet with Shaul Mofaz, Kadima's head and the current opposition leader.)

A Tweet from the Israeli political analyst Didi Remez said that the Hebrew version of the Haaretz article had claimed that the meeting was cancelled under pressure from Netanyahu.