William, who is second in line to the throne, is touring Israel and the West Bank during his three-day visit, which is being seen as a major test for the 36-year-old grandson of Queen Elizabeth due to the complex political and religious sensitivities surrounding his stay.
JERUSALEM—Prince William began his ‘’historic’’ visit in Israel at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre, where he toured the museum and laid a wreath to commemorate the six million Jews who died during the Holocaust.
William also met Paul Alexander and Henry Foner, who escaped from Nazi Germany in the Kindertransport, a British initiative to rescue 10,000 Jewish children who were evacuated to Britain before World War two began.
The Duke of Cambridge is the first member of the British royal family to make an official visit to the land which Britain governed under a League of Nations mandate from 1920 to 1948.
At Yad Vashem, he signed the museum’s guestbook. “It has been a profoundly moving experience to visit Yad Vashem today. It is almost impossible to comprehend this appalling event in history. Every name, photograph and memory recorded here is a tragic reminder of the loss suffered by the Jewish people. The story of the Holocaust is one of darkness and despair, questioning humanity itself,” he wrote.
“We must never forget the Holocaust — the murder of 6 million men, women and children, simply because they were Jewish. We all have a responsibility to remember and to teach future generations about the horrors of the past so that they can never reoccur. May the millions of Jewish people remembered by Yad Vashem never be forgotten,” he added.
William also referenced his great-grandmother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, who is recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations for helping save a Jewish family in Greece during the Holocaust.
“The actions of those few, who took great risks to help others, are a reminder of the human capacity for love and hope. I am honoured that my own great grandmother is one of these Righteous Among the Nations,” he wrote.
William will visit Princess Alice’s grave on the Mount of Olives Thursday. She was interred there in the late 1980s in accordance with her wishes.
Prince Philip, the son of Princess Alice and William’s grandfather, planted a tree at Yad Vashem in his mother’s honor during a private museum to the memorial in 1994.
On Tuesday, he met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife at their official residence on Jerusalem’s Balfour Street, named after the former UK Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur Balfour who signed the Balfour Declaration in 1917 announcing the British Government’s support for the “establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”.
The Duke’s next stop was a meeting with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin before he travels to the mixed Jewish-Arab city of Jaffa. The Prince will attend a football match at the Neve Golan Stadium and meet young people involved in the work of two charities, the Equaliser and the Peres Centre for Peace, which are focused on peace-buidling and co-existence through football and sport between young people from different religious and ethnic backgrounds.
After the match, Prince William will attend another event in central Tel Aviv with Mayor Ron Huldai. On Wednesday morning, he will go to Ramallah for a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
On Thursday, William is expected to tour several religious sites in Jerusalem’s Old City, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, and the Western Wall, though these visits have not been confirmed.
That those visits are taking place under the auspices of the UK consulate in Jerusalem, which is in charge of London’s relations with the Palestinian Authority, has garnered some criticism from Israeli officials, with Jerusalem Minister Ze’ev Elkin accusing the second-in-line to the throne of “politicizing” his visit to the region, writes The Times of Israel.
Britain’s Ambassador to Israel, David Quarrey, defended describing Jerusalem’s Old City as being part of the “Occupied Palestinian Territories” in the prince’s itinerary.
“All the terminology that was used in the program was consistent with years of practice by British governments. It’s consistent with British government policy,” he told reporters during a briefing at his Ramat Gan residence on Thursday.
On Thursday, in the early afternoon, the Duke will depart from Ben Gurion International Airport en route to London on a special flight.