Queen Elizabeth II, the Royal Family, Jews, and Israel

During her long reign that spanned much of the 20th century, Queen Elizabeth II maintained friendly ties with leaders of the Jewish community. 

However, despite cordial relations with the various Israeli leaders, she never visited Israel, even though she took official visits to dozens of countries. 

In reality, it is indeed an unofficial "boycott" that governs relations between the two countries, since no member of the Royal Family ever visited Israel in an official capacity until 2018.

That year, Prince William, heir to the British throne, made an official visit to Israel for the first time, ending this "boycott" of the Jewish state by royalty.

Prince Philip indeed made a personal visit in 1994, to honor his mother, Princess Alice of Greece, buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Prince Charles, now King Charles III, also made the trip in 1995 and 2016 to attend the funerals of former prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. 

But those stays were not considered by the Crown as "official.”

“There were prolonged periods during which British governments observed a cold, lukewarm attitude towards Israel, even while other governments showed sympathy and closeness,” said journalist Michel Gurfinkiel. 

"During the first 40 years of Israel's history, many countries avoided arranging official visits to Israel, but such reservations subsequently fell away. For example, it was only in 1982 that a French president went there."

The British refusal, extended over decades, upset many Israeli politicians and members of Britain’s Jewish community. 

"It is very difficult to imagine the degree of animosity that may have existed in Great Britain, in all circles on the left as well as on the right at that time against the new Jewish state. Until 1955, the English army routinely made plans to attack Israel, doom Israel in a possible new Middle East war,” the journalist explained.

"Things only started to change in this regard at the time of Suez, when Anthony Suez, Churchill's successor as head of the British government, gave the green light for cooperation with the Israelis against Egypt." 

Despite this rebuff, the Queen was always careful to maintain close ties with Jews and met many visiting Israeli dignitaries. She also accepted credentials from Israeli ambassadors to the United Kingdom.

However, she protected her relations with the Arab countries, in particular, the Arab monarchies that she did not want to offend. "We were even able to speak of a kind of monarchical club in the Middle East which included Queen Elisabeth, the King of Saudi Arabia, the emirs of the Persian Gulf, and the Sultan of Oman," said Gurfinkiel.

It was commonly believed that the British Foreign Office itself advised the Queen not to visit Israel, for fear of Arab reactions. Nevertheless, even after the fear of boycotts and oil embargoes subsided, the Queen did not come. 

An unnamed British government official told The Daily Telegraph in 2015 that "until there is a settlement of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the Royal Family can't really go there,” referring to the governing body in the West Bank.

These diplomatic reasons did not affect the Queen’s "national" missions nor her commitment to the Jewish community, though. 

Elizabeth elevated chief rabbis Emmanuel Jakobovits and Jonathan Sacks to nobility and granted knighthoods to many British Jews. Her relations with the Jewish community in Britain were quite good, and British Jews always showed loyalty and gratitude to the Queen. 

When a British tabloid published a video of seven-year-old Elizabeth II giving a Nazi salute, the Jews of Britain largely defended their monarch.

“For Jews, her reign was a period of intense calm, during which our loyalty to Britain and the Royal Family was mutual on all levels, from the mundane daily life of the Jewish community to the highest echelons of power and society,” wrote The Jewish Chronicle on September 9, in an article titled: “To Jews, the Queen represented everything we love in this country.”

During her last official trip abroad, in 2015, Queen Elizabeth II visited Germany and a concentration camp for the first time, where she laid a wreath in Bergen-Belsen and met with Holocaust survivors.