A right royal boycott: Britain’s Royal Family is banned from official visits to Israel
In a jaw-dropping speech to the Anglo-Israel Association earlier this week, Andrew Roberts, one of Britain’s most prominent historians, made reference to one particular British boycott of Israel that is mentioned far too rarely: The Foreign Office has a ban in place on the Royal Family making official visits.
The speech came at a dinner (which I attended) on Tuesday evening in a swanky London hotel. It is an annual affair which is designed to bring together senior figures in the British establishment with supporters of Israel. Many in attendance were literally open-mouthed as Roberts tore in to the record of the UK Foreign Office over Israel. Melanie Phillips has a transcript of the full speech, the link to which is at the end of this article.
But it was his hilarious elucidation of the royal boycott that really caught everyone’s attention. Here is what Roberts said:
“One area of policy over which the FO [Foreign Office] has traditionally held great sway is in the question of Royal Visits. It is therefore no coincidence that although HMQ [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, the Duke of Edinburgh was not allowed by the FO [Foreign Office] to visit her grave until 1994, and then only on a private visit.”
And, he continued:
“Official visits are organized and taken on the advice of the Foreign and Commonwealth office,” a press officer for the royal family explained when Prince Edward visited Israel recently privately – and a spokesman for the Foreign Office replied that “Israel is not unique” in not having received an official royal visit, because “Many countries have not had an official visit.” That might be true for Burkino Faso and Chad, but the FO has somehow managed to find the time over the years to send the Queen on State visits to Libya, Iran, Sudan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Jordan & Turkey. So it can’t have been that she wasn’t in the area.
“Perhaps Her Majesty hasn’t been on the throne long enough, at 57 years, for the Foreign Office to get round to allowing her to visit one of the only democracies in the Middle East. At least she could be certain of a warm welcome in Israel, unlike in Morocco where she was kept waiting by the King for three hours in 90 degree heat, or at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Uganda the time before last, where they hadn’t even finished building her hotel.
“The true reason of course, is that the Foreign Office has a ban on official Royal visits to Israel, which is even more powerful for its being unwritten and unacknowledged. As an act of delegitimization of Israel, this effective boycott is quite as serious as other similar acts, such as the academic boycott, and is the direct fault of the FO [Foreign Office] Arabists.”
To read the full speech, click here:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/5620681/an-inconvenient-truth.thtml
December 14th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Well done Robin Shepherd for helping to spread the word about the perfidious FO camel corps control of Royal visits. Must have been truly riotous to see the jaws dropping in real-time. The internet is really helping to show up more widely the camel corpsers’ responsibility for the catastrophe of Britain’s foreign policy in the Middle East. But, as Andrew Roberts implies, one should not bet on anything changing under failed Tory leader and election loser Hague.
December 14th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Andrew Roberts was likely adhering to the British protocol of respect for the sovereign. The Windsors bear some responsibility here, too.
December 14th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Jaws dropping and hilarious elucidation are all fine fodder for intellectual blogs.
For my part, I plan to write to Her Majesty. Perhaps she does not know. However, she will soon know that the world knows.
December 15th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
I know that Prince Charles attended Rabin’s funeral and that Prince Edward paid a private visit to Israel. However if I were Israel I would take the attitude “If you do not want to make an official visit then we are the last people who would want to officially invite you”.