Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, has sought to recruit the Duke of Cambridge as a peace envoy before the prince’s meeting with the Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas.
At a meeting in Jerusalem on Tuesday, Rivlin asked the duke to deliver to Abbas “a message of peace”, telling him that together they had to build confidence and understanding to bring to an end “the tragedy between us that goes along for more than 120 years”.
The duke, the first senior royal to pay an official visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, responded that he was “hoping that peace in the area can be achieved”. Talks between Israel and the Palestinians collapsed in 2014.
The exchange took place on the first full day of engagements in Jerusalem on a visit diplomats have stressed is non-political.
The duke met Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his wife Sara, who last week was charged with fraud and breach of trust for allegedly using public funds to pay for restaurant meals to be delivered to the couple’s official residence.
Earlier, the duke paid tribute to the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, standing with his head bowed before an eternal flame that flickers in their memory at the Holocaust museum Yad Vashem.
He laid a wreath and was shown around a virtual cemetery where names and details of millions of victims are recorded on pages of testimony. The duke viewed an exhibit of shoes taken from Jews by the Nazis at a death camp, and the remains of a cattle truck used to transport victims. “It’s terrifying. I’m trying to comprehend the scale,” he said, wearing a black Jewish skullcap, a gift from Britain’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, who accompanied him.
It was a moment for sombre contemplation for the second in line to the British throne, shared with Holocaust survivors including Henry Foner, 86, and Paul Alexander, 80, who were among thousands of Jewish children who reached Britain and safety on the “Kindertransport”.
There was a personal connection, too, for the prince, whose great-grandmother, Princess Alice of Greece, the mother of the Duke of Edinburgh, was granted the highest honour Israel grants to non-Jews for her role in hiding a Jewish family in her Athens palace during the Nazi occupation of Greece.
The duke later met surfers on Tel Aviv beach, where well-wishers shook his hand. He also powered home two out of three penalty shots in Jaffa at a sports centre where charities bring together Jewish and Arab people through football.
In a speech at a British Embassy reception, the duke pledged to help keep alive the memory of the Holocaust. “Israel’s remarkable story is partly one of remembering this terrible past but, also, looking forward to a much more hopeful future.” There was “an essential vibrancy to this country” he said, adding that ties between Israel and the UK have never been stronger.
“Never has hope and reconciliation been more needed. I know I share a desire with all of you, and with your neighbours, for a just and lasting peace.”
The duke was scheduled to meet Abbas, as well as Palestinian refugees and young people, in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday.
The prince’s visit comes amid growing tensions in the region, with deadly clashes on the Gaza border following protests as Israel marks its 70th anniversary year, and the decision by the US president, Donald Trump, to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the disputed holy city of Jerusalem.
The Foreign Press Association (FPA) condemned the prime minister’s office after the Associated Press’s (AP) chief television producer, Nebi Qena, who had been accredited to cover Netanyahu’s meeting with the prince, was apparently barred by security guards who repeatedly asked about his “extraction”. Colleagues of Qena, who is originally from Albania and was educated in the UK, were allegedly questioned about his religion and whether he was a Muslim.
The FPA said the incident was “disgraceful” and described it as “ethnic profiling”.
An AP spokesman said: “The Associated Press decries this blatant ethnic and religious profiling of an AP journalist and calls on the prime minister’s office to cease such biased practice immediately.”
Kensington Palace declined to comment.
Agencies contributed to this report
