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Biblical scholars said both men were right – while Christ’s mother tongue was Aramaic, he would have known Hebrew.

Deciding, in the words of one Israeli official, not to “get mad but to get even”, the hosts had earlier made strong representations to Vatican planners that the Pope should pray at the memorial on Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl in a demonstration of the need for the barrier to protect citizens from suicide bombers.

“I want to thank the Pope for accepting my request to visit this memorial,” Mr Netanyahu said, adding that the wall had saved “thousands of lives — after it was set up, the terror stopped.”

He pointedly showed the Argentine Pope a section of the memorial dedicated to the victims of the bombing of a Jewish association in Buenos Aires in 1994. Pope Francis was an auxiliary bishop of the Argentine capital at the time.

“Instead of filing an official protest [to the Vatican] we just went the same way and took the Pope to a place that means a lot to us,” the official said. “Why is there a barrier? Because there are terrorists who were using free access to Israel to carry out suicide bombings.”

Asked how the Pope was persuaded to visit the memorial, the official replied with irony: “I cannot explain it. It’s a miracle. There were diplomatic contacts … let’s just say it was a mixture of divine inspiration and a miracle.”

Israeli officials accused the Palestinians of “politicizing” the papal trip in order to score “a public relations victory,” and said they had responded in kind.