No one from Buckingham Palace has ever come for a visit in Israel, with two exceptions: one was when the Queen’s husband, Prince Philip, came to Israel for a ceremony in which his mother was honored as a Righteous Gentile. The second was when Prince Charles attended the funeral of Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin in 1995.
In both these cases the palace was careful to emphasize at every opportunity that the visits were private ones and did not represent the palace.
Most believe this is due to an unwarranted fear that a visit by the Queen in Israel would hurt the British Empire’s business in Arab countries.
As for the possibility that the Queen does not wish to visit Israel because it chose to reject the British Mandate and establish an independent state in 1948, many are of the opinion that the Queen’s refusal to visit Israel definitely contains an element of de-legitimization and there is no doubt that if she would choose to visit Israel, it would be seen as a clearly symbolic act.
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