Prince William’s Middle East visit.

The visit of Prince William as a news story has had to play third fiddle to the World Cup and the greater Manchester moorland fire but it will be one followed closely by the Anglo Jewry community for whom it

has long been a sore that the Queen has never set foot in Israel. The Jewish prayer book is the only one outside the Church of England  that has a prayer to the Royal Family and, although dwindling in  numbers the Association of Jewish ex-Servicemen (Ajex) is justifiably proud of the role of Jewish soldiers in the armed forces in the last war.

Although not one of those who follow every move of the Royals with acute or obsessive interest- I never watched the recent Harry/Meghan wedding – I am extremely impressed by Prince William.

This is not an easy trip. On one hand the Foreign Office will be interfering and have been, on the other there is danger of being a political football. Prince William deftly manoeuvred between the two, referring to his grandmother Prince Alice harbouring Jews in her house even when about to be searched by the Gestapo whilst being sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians.

There is a very real concern in the Anglo-Jewish community of anti-semitism in Corbyn’s Labour Party often disguised as an attack on Israel. One of his big wigs Seamus Milne has been quoted as saying he can’t forgive Israel for the ethnic cleansing of 1948. I hope he is mindful of the enormous assistance Israel provides to the intelligence services here on the next Jihadist outrage but somehow I doubt it.