England’s royal ‘settlers’ understanding of Jerusalem - by Stephen M. Flatow

It’s easy to see why the Palestinian Authority would have been offended by Prince Charles’ visit to his relatives’ graves in 2016—and why they will be unhappy if Prince William wants to do likewise.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
21 June '18..

The staff of Great Britain’s Prince William has set off a controversy by listing Jerusalem under “Occupied Palestinian Territories” in the itinerary for his upcoming visit to the region. The irony is that two of the prince’s own relatives chose to be buried in that same territory—and surely would have scoffed at the idea that the “Palestinians” are the territory’s rightful owners.

William’s great-grandmother, Princess Alice, and her aunt, the Grand Duchess Elisabeth, are both buried in a small Christian cemetery on the Mount of Olives near the largest Jewish cemetery in the world. The Mount of Olives is in a part of the city that the Palestinian Authority calls “Arab East Jerusalem.”

The P.A. says that area should be the “capital of Palestine.” As such, according to the P.A., Zionists—whether Jews or Christians—have no right to be there. They’re “illegal settlers.”

Here are some facts. The cemetery where the two royals are buried belongs to the Church of Mary Magdalene, a Russian Orthodox Church and convent that was built at the foot of the Mount of Olives in 1886 by Czar Alexander II. It is located directly across the Kidron Valley from the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism.

Princess Alice, who lived in Greece during World War II, hid a Jewish family from the Nazis and was posthumously honored by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. Alice, who passed away in 1969, left instructions to be buried at Mary Magdalene cemetery. Her remains were transferred there in 1988.

Prince Charles, the grandson of Princess Alice (and heir to the throne of England) visited the graves of his grandmother, and her aunt, when he attended the funeral of Shimon Peres in 2016. But his visit to the Mount of Olives was undertaken secretly, without the knowledge of the public or news media, apparently for fear of offending the P.A.

It’s easy to see why the P.A. would have been offended by Prince Charles’ visit to his relatives’ graves—and why they will be unhappy if Prince William wants to do likewise.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Prince William (and the British Foreign Office) in Jerusalem - by Elliott Abrams

...The visit by Prince William has been damaged by the Foreign Office, but it is still a step forward after 70 years of refusals to make an official visit at all. One hopes that during the Prince’s visit to Israel, someone—perhaps the Chief Rabbi—will tell him what was the fate of East Jerusalem before Israel conquered it in 1967: no access at all for Jews, no protection for Jewish holy sites, vast destruction of Jewish holy and historical locations. The Prince will visit the Mount of Olives. Perhaps he might be told what occurred during the Jordanian period...

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..13 June '18..
Link: https://www.cfr.org/blog/prince-william-and-foreign-office-jerusalem

I’ve written many times about the British royal family’s remarkable record of refusing to make an official visit to Israel while making scores of visits to Arab capitals. That will change in a matter of days when Prince William visits Jordan, Israel, and the “Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

It has long been assumed that the royals themselves were not refusing to visit, but were (as is constitutionally required in the U.K.) following the advice of Her Majesty’s Government—in this case the Foreign Office. While we do not know what led to the current change of policy that permits a royal visit, it may well be the warming relations between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors. It simply cannot be argued these days that a royal visit to Israel will harm Britain in any way.

More on:

Palestinian Territories Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Israel United Kingdom Palestinian Territories
But leave it to the Foreign Office to try to stir ill will over the visit. Here is what the Jewish Chronicle in London reports:

The Duke of Cambridge will arrive in the evening on June 25, after visiting Jordan.

His first engagement, on the morning of June 26, will see him visit Yad Vashem – Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

Accompanied by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, the prince will receive a short tour of the museum and meet with a survivor of the Holocaust and the Kindertransport.

He will also lay a wreath in Yad Vashem’s Hall of Remembrance.

After that, the prince will meet Mr Netanyahu and Mr Rivlin at their respective residences....planned stops include the Mount of Olives, where the prince’s great grandmother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, is buried.

The itinerary says this will take place as part of the prince’s trip to the “Occupied Palestinian territories.”

It gets worse.

The House of Windsor’s Israel Problem - by Ben Cohen

...To entirely pin the blame for this unsettling indifference towards Israel on the Arabists at the British Foreign Office, who have been in a state of penance ever since the Balfour Declaration of 1917, would do Elizabeth a great disservice. True, unlike her forebears, her divine right to rule has been severely tempered by the more modern rule of law. But that manifestly does not mean she is a plaything of the British government, blissfully unaware of the soft power and international legitimacy that a royal visit grants.

Ben Cohen..
JNS.org..
02 March '18..

Queen Elizabeth II is marking her 66th year of reign in 2018, which by any standards is an extraordinarily long time for a single individual to be a head of state. (By comparison, King David is said to have reigned for 40 years, and Queen Victoria—comfortably overtaken now by Elizabeth—managed 64.)

Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any current ruler who has remained in place throughout the Cold War and beyond. In that sense, historians will have a grand second Elizabethan era to pour through, one so lengthy that those things that were features of the first half of her reign—ration books, royal family struggles with the Church of England, a snarling punk ditty by the Sex Pistols that rhymed “queen” with “fascist regime”—were misty memories by the time it came to its close in the age of social media.

But for all the momentous historic changes that Elizabeth witnessed from her vantage points at Buckingham Palace, Windsor and Balmoral—changes that were often blessed with royal visits, high honors, state banquets and so forth—one country went stubbornly unacknowledged: Israel.

Now that Elizabeth’s grandson, Prince William, has announced a first-ever visit by a British royal to Israel, in addition to Jordan and the “Occupied Palestinian Territories,” it is perhaps time to reflect on the relationship, or absence of one, between the House of Windsor and the Jewish nation.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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