Britain’s Queen Elizabeth believed that every Israeli was “either a terrorist or the son of a terrorist” and refused to allow Israeli officials into Buckingham Palace, former Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said.
“Relations between us and Queen Elizabeth have been somewhat difficult,” Rivlin said at a gala event marking the Haifa Technical Institute in London on Sunday night.
Rivlin served as Israel’s tenth president between 2014 and 2021, while the queen passed away in 2022. The former president said the queen “believed that each of us was either a terrorist or the son of a terrorist.”
“She refused to receive any Israeli official at Buckingham Palace, except on international occasions,” Rivlin said.
Later, when asked about his comments, he repeated his words: “Those are my words, that’s what I said”:
A history of strained relations
The Queen was often perceived as having strained relations with Israel. Although she visited more than 120 countries and traveled about a million kilometers during her 70 years on the throne, she has never visited the country.
In September 2022, after Elizabeth’s death, Stuart Pollak, honorary chairman of the influential Conservative Friends of Israel (CFoI) group, claimed that “the Foreign Office has banned members of the royal family from visiting Israel.” Others have offered alternative interpretations.
Writing in 2012 about the Queen’s failure to visit Israel, former Haaretz editor-in-chief David Landau said: “This wonderful, dedicated, 86-year-old sovereign is no one’s puppet.
“If she wanted to visit the Jewish state or allow a close family member to “If she did, she could insist on it and achieve her goal,” Landau said.
Some have speculated that Elizabeth had a negative attitude towards Israel because of the violent rebellion waged by Zionist armed groups against the British Mandate of Palestine in the 1940s, before the declaration of independence Israel.
During a visit to Jordan in 1984, she reportedly said, “How terrifying,” as Israeli fighter jets flew over the skies near the occupied West Bank.
Queen Noor, wife of King Hussein of Jordan, reportedly replied, “It’s terrible.”
Later Queen Elizabeth was reportedly shown a map showing the locations of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, to which she said: “What a depressing map”.
Former Israeli President Rivlin’s comments sparked a series of humorous social media posts depicting the late monarch wearing a keffiyeh, a Palestinian headscarf.
King Charles and Israel
No member of the royal family had visited Israel in an official capacity until 2018, when Prince William, the Queen’s grandson, arrived to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Israel’s independence. Rivlin said on Sunday that King Charles, Elizabeth’s son, had always been “so friendly” compared to his mother.
In January 2020, Charles made an official visit to Israel as the Prince of Wales. He also visited the occupied West Bank, where he declared that his “dearest wish is that the future brings freedom, justice and equality to all Palestinians.”
The king has previously caused controversy for his views on Israel.
In 2017, a letter he wrote to a friend in 1986 after a trip to the Middle East surfaced.
Stating that he had read some of the Quran and admired “some aspects of Islam,” the then-prince said he had begun to understand the Arab “viewpoint on Israel.”
“I never understood that they saw it as a colony of the US. Now I understand that Arabs and Jews were originally Semitic people + that the influx of foreign, European Jews (especially from Poland, they say) contributed to creating major problems,” wrote Charles .
Most controversially, Charles asked: “Doesn’t an American president have to have the courage to stand up to the Jewish lobby in the US?”
In July this year, the king said Britain was “committed to a two-state solution with a secure and a protected Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state,” confirming the government’s long-standing official position. Controversy surrounding the British monarchy and Israel has also touched the younger generation of royals.
The Israeli government was reportedly “stunned” when Prince William called for an end to the Gaza war in February this year, but “decided not to criticize him publicly any further” would not come into conflict with the future king.”, Klix.ba writes.
Photo: L’Officiel
