Where there’s a will
For most of Israel’s 70 years it has seemed as if an official royal visit would never happen. Not only were Israel’s repeated invitations rebuffed with the superior disdain that typified the old, Arabist Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but the British government refused even to admit there was a boycott. And then, earlier this year, came the wholly unexpected announcement that Prince William would indeed soon be on his way to Israel. The visit matters for many reasons but perhaps most of all because it confirms what has been increasingly apparent in recent years — that the British foreign policy establishment today is far removed from the instinctively anti-Israel attitudes of old. But the success of this week’s visit is not just about what it is not. Forget, for a moment, the impact on Israel. For our own community, which says a weekly prayer for the Royal Family, this has been a deeply symbolic visit.
Our future King has trodden the same streets and inhaled the same air that so many of us do every year, in a nation with which we feel such a unique bond. He has experienced the miracle of Israel — an experience that will never leave him. As British Jews, we have every reason to feel pride. For Israel, too, there is a sense in which a royal visit is an appropriate way to mark its 70th birthday (however much such a visit should have taken place many years earlier). But, for all the symbolism, William’s time in Israel has also simply been a triumph of planning and execution, seeing Israel at its diverse best — from hi-tech inventions to Netta, from footvolley on Tel Aviv beach to meetings with presidents and prime ministers. It has been simply wonderful.