Prince’s visit to Israel ‘not political’

– Britain’s Prince William arrived in Israel yesterday, the first member of the royal family to make an official visit to the Jewish state and the Palestinian territories.

The prince’s plane from Jordan landed at Ben Gurion Airport between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem with the royal descending on to the tarmac in a dark suit.

Officials stressed his visit was non-political and focused on building relations with young people. Yet he is likely to rub up against the complicated realities

Tel Aviv

of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly when he visits the disputed holy city of Jerusalem.

Philip Hall, Britain’s consul general in Jerusalem, told journalists yesterday: “We know some of the politics are difficult, but this is not a political visit.”

He will stay in Jerusalem at the King David Hotel, former headquarters of the British administration during the mandate in Palestine before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.

Today, he is to lay a wreath at the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem, before meeting separately with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin.

Tomorrow he is scheduled to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah before meeting Palestinian refugees and young people.

Israel defines Jerusalem as its “eternal and indivisible” capital, while the Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. –