In spite of British Foreign Office policy that “the Royal Family should not make official visits to Israel due to its historic and grave violations of human rights, international law and UN resolutions,” Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, made just such an official visit last week. At the British Embassy Garden Banquet in Tel Aviv he said that he was delighted to be in Israel. He spoke about his first official engagement visiting Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial, which he found a “profoundly moving experience”. We doubt if any of his Israeli hosts pointed out to Prince William the location of Deir Yassin on the other side of the valley from the Holocaust Memorial, the village where 254 Palestinian men women and children were brutally murdered by Zionist forces in 1948, now bulldozed and covered by a new settlement of Orthodox Jews centered round a mental hospital.
Prince William also visited the “Occupied Palestinian Territories”, (a title which infuriated Israelis), shared peace pleasantries with President Abbas and played football with some kids. In Ramallah he spoke to school girls in Jalazone refugee camp, and visited a cultural display and a street food festival, but the continued annexation of land, building of settlements and walls, the killing, systematic repression and displacement of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli state remained absent from discussion, and unsurprisingly, the daily lives of Palestinians, which includes checkpoints, an apartheid wall and illegal settlements remained invisible in the official visit. “You will not be forgotten,” Prince William told his Palestinian hosts as he stepped from the Occupied Territories back into Israel.
In Jerusalem, donning a black skullcap at the Western Wall, accompanied by security guards, he placed his right hand on the ancient stones, stuck a note in a crack, and stood for a full minute while cameras flashed.
“Today we experienced a moment of history which will live long in the memory of Jews around the world,” said the Chief Rabbi of Britain Ephraim Mirvis, who accompanied the prince on his visit. “The Western Wall stands at the epicenter of our faith. To see the future monarch come to pay his respects was a remarkable gesture of friendship and a sign of the duke’s regard for the sanctity of Jerusalem.”
Surely the visit is especially politically charged, given the aspirations of the over 120 Palestinians massacred and 14,000 injured by the Israeli army during the Great Return March protests in Gaza? British arms exports “almost certainly” were used in the attack, in direct contravention of the UK’s policy that arms exports should not be used in the Occupied Territories.
UK arms export licences to Israel soared to £216m last year. They include “technology for military radars”, grenades, bombs, missiles, armoured vehicles, assault rifles, small arms ammunition, sniper rifles and components for sniper rifles which may have been used by the Israeli military on the Gaza border.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/02/prince-williams-trip-to-israel/
Prince William also visited the “Occupied Palestinian Territories”, (a title which infuriated Israelis), shared peace pleasantries with President Abbas and played football with some kids. In Ramallah he spoke to school girls in Jalazone refugee camp, and visited a cultural display and a street food festival, but the continued annexation of land, building of settlements and walls, the killing, systematic repression and displacement of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli state remained absent from discussion, and unsurprisingly, the daily lives of Palestinians, which includes checkpoints, an apartheid wall and illegal settlements remained invisible in the official visit. “You will not be forgotten,” Prince William told his Palestinian hosts as he stepped from the Occupied Territories back into Israel.
In Jerusalem, donning a black skullcap at the Western Wall, accompanied by security guards, he placed his right hand on the ancient stones, stuck a note in a crack, and stood for a full minute while cameras flashed.
“Today we experienced a moment of history which will live long in the memory of Jews around the world,” said the Chief Rabbi of Britain Ephraim Mirvis, who accompanied the prince on his visit. “The Western Wall stands at the epicenter of our faith. To see the future monarch come to pay his respects was a remarkable gesture of friendship and a sign of the duke’s regard for the sanctity of Jerusalem.”
Surely the visit is especially politically charged, given the aspirations of the over 120 Palestinians massacred and 14,000 injured by the Israeli army during the Great Return March protests in Gaza? British arms exports “almost certainly” were used in the attack, in direct contravention of the UK’s policy that arms exports should not be used in the Occupied Territories.
UK arms export licences to Israel soared to £216m last year. They include “technology for military radars”, grenades, bombs, missiles, armoured vehicles, assault rifles, small arms ammunition, sniper rifles and components for sniper rifles which may have been used by the Israeli military on the Gaza border.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/02/prince-williams-trip-to-israel/
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