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Duke of Cambridge's Visit to Israel Will End a 70-Year Royal Snub

(Jewish News-UK) Andrew Roberts - A long-standing Foreign Office taboo has been broken with the news that HRH Prince William is going to visit Israel. The royal visit is a statement that Israel is no longer going to be treated like the pariah nation it so long has been by the Foreign Office. It is no coincidence that although Her Majesty the Queen has made over 250 official overseas visits to 129 different countries during her reign, neither she nor one single member of the British royal family has ever been to Israel on an official visit. Even though Prince Philip's mother, Princess Alice of Greece, who was recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations" for sheltering a Jewish family in her Athens home during the Holocaust, was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, the Duke of Edinburgh was not allowed by the Foreign Office to visit her grave until 1994, and then only on a private visit. When he gets back to Britain after his visit, Prince William will be able to tell the rest of his family what a wonderful place they were forced to miss out visiting because of the ban imposed for 70 years by a small group of Foreign Office Arabists. The writer is a British historian and journalist.
2018-03-02 00:00:00
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