The prince and the son-in-law

Prince William and Netta Barzilai  photo: Ben Kalmer
Prince William and Netta Barzilai photo: Ben Kalmer

The visits of Prince William and Jared Kushner revealed two very different ways of seeing Israel.

Last week, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, made the first ever official visit to Israel by a member of the British royal family. One day's coverage can't tell you everything about a person's character, but reporters who accompany tours by the various sorts of VIPs - ministers, magnates, senators, presidents and prime ministers - have, over the years, seen a wide range of gestures, communication skills, and willingness or undisguised unwillingness of people to listen to those around them. Many of these VIPs take care to put on a show for the cameras and immediately afterwards break contact and move on. I don't blame them; it's hard to the point of being intolerable to live under a public magnifying glass.

In the case of William (we can call him that now in Israel after the crowds on Frishman beach yelled to him "Willie, Willie, let's go for shawarma together") one became aware of a special effort - and it brought results too - to pay attention to the people he met. His schedule was crowded. He began Tuesday in Jerusalem at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, and from there continued to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in Balfour Street, then to President Reuven Rivlin's residence, to the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation in Jaffa to meet a football team of Jewish and Arab children, and then to Frishman beach in Tel Aviv. There, after small talk with mayor of Tel Aviv Ron Huldai, he walked across the burning sand (the temperature was about 35 degrees) to the lifesavers' hut, climbed up and talked inside with four lifesavers, climbed down again and sat on a red plastic chair.

Under the beach awning he was awaited by four-times world champion windsurfer Lee Korzits and surfers Omri Hazor and Shachar Aharoni. William is 36, Korzits is 34, and Hazor and Aharoni are both 30. The four of them belong to the same generation. The subject of their conversation was the pollution on the beaches, and activities of Israeli athletes outside of competitive sport. Hazor, who has won the European championship and came second in the world junior championship, now devotes part of his time to this cause. He is involved in educating surfers and divers to gather garbage from the sea and remove it. Aharoni is involved in S4P (Surfers for Peace), which helps to buy surf boards and send them to a surfing club in Gaza, and encourages people of different backgrounds to surf together and promotes sporting activities that transcend borders.

The following day, Wednesday, William met Maya Jacobs, CEO of marine environmental group Zalul, environmental campaigner Adi Lustig, and other environmental activists. The talk was about corals, plastic, bottle cages, collection, recycling, and waste disposal. The man has both feet on the ground in every way.

Back to the sea. While William talked to the surfers, the British Embassy staff directed the photographers and journalists to stand around a beach volleyball court. I stood there, and was immediately elbowed by an older official British photographer in long sleeves. A British agency photographer elbowed me from the other side. Photographers and journalists jostle each other rudely at events of this kind. Israeli, British, or anywhere in the world, they gaily trample the female journalists and photographers working alongside them. All that matters is getting a better photo. Never mind that they are usually taller and beefier.

While my British colleagues shoved me, William remained behind us for several long minutes. All the time we were thinking that any second he'll be in front of us for a beach volleyball photo-op, and he just kept on talking. A genuine conversation.

He's a prince because he was born to certain parents. He didn’t plan it, and he has no real job in life other than to show curiosity and interest in the details that matter in the world of 2018. For some moments I found myself thinking that it must be sad to live in a virtual cage of photographers, onlookers, reporters and prying individuals. But I saw someone who was trying to get the best out of this unique situation.

Postcards from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv

Six weeks apart, I experienced two very different events. The difference says something about Israel's split personality in 2018. The first event - the transfer of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May - was full of formality. A celebratory cocktail party at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, emotional speeches at a breakfast at the Waldorf Hotel, and the ceremony itself, with a massive presence of the American evangelist community. It was a voluptuous month for Jerusalem.

The second event - Prince William in the scorching Tel Aviv summer with Huldai's lifesavers' hut and a crazy cocktail party with extraordinary guests on the lawns of UK ambassador David Quarrey's residence in Ramat Gan. If I were a tourist, I'd be recording impressions of heaven and earth, sacred and profane, past and future.

Although both events were characterized by floods of diplomatic gestures with very little practical significance, we received guests representing future leadership. One is a prince who will probably be a king. He will have a crown on his head and elevated status, and people will continue to ask, who these days needs the British royal family, and what does he do in life other than playing the role?

The other, Jared Kushner, 35, son-in-law of President of the United States Donald Trump, also probably has a political future still ahead of him.

Both reached their positions through family connections. Neither of them was elected or worked particularly hard to sit on history's front seat.

William lacks real power but has influence on hearts and minds. Kushner is a man who holds the reins. In age, they are just one year apart. Each did something important in visiting us. The State of Israel hosted both of them generously, with attention to detail, cordially, and with great excitement. That's as it should be.

The symbols and ceremonies seem pompous as they happen, but they will go into the history books as significant.

Prince William posted the end of a dismal chapter in relations between Israel and the United Kingdom. Their anger at the way in which the mandate over the Land of Israel ended led to seven decades in which no British royal set foot here (other than in short unofficial visits).

Son-in-Law Kushner posted the end of a strange chapter in relations between Israel and most other countries in which they would not recognize Israel's capital Jerusalem as the official capital of the country. The dispute between Israel and the international community is not over, but the US began a trend and that is how it will be from now on.

Each of these events was run by the country of origin, through its embassy here. US ambassador David Friedman on one side and UK ambassador David Quarrey on the other. Friedman also turned up to welcome the prince on Tuesday evening, so everything was intertwined.

The Americans embraced Jerusalem with religion, biblical verses, talk of building the Third Temple, disregard of the Arab narrative, endorsement of the Orthodox and closed eyes to all the world's liberal and progressive Jews. While the embassy ceremony was taking place, 60 Palestinians were killed at the Gaza border fence, and the guests at the ceremony received reports on their mobile telephones, while singing Hallelujah. The ceremony itself was laced with religious motifs somewhat alien to Jews, reaching the height of incongruity with the inclusion among the speakers of preachers Jeffress and Hagee, who have had controversial things to say about Muslims and about the role of the Jews in history.

The British embraced Tel Aviv with water melon, football between Jews and Arabs, beach volleyball, swimsuits, a lifeguard's hut, a drone from the municipality photographing every moment, environmental activists, and in the British ambassador's garden the prince was introduced to model Bar Refaeli, singers Ivri Lider and Shiri Maimon, and also to president of the Supreme Court Esther Hayut, businessman Yitzhak Tshuva, and Yediot Ahronot publisher Arnon Mozes, mingling in public in a way that is uncharacteristic of him. The next day, the prince took up the youthful theme again, taking in Rothschild Boulevard and meeting Netta Barzilai and Tel Aviv social activists. Huldai accompanied the prince for part of the day. Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat refused to attend the evening in Ramat Gan because he wanted a meeting with the prince in Jerusalem.

It's impossible to think of two events with more opposed agendas. On the one hand, an event of the conservative royal house turns out to be a modern production, colorful, connected to music, sport, and today's world. On the other hand, the most buzzing White House ever, with a president with a revolutionary temperament, produces a Christian, staid, traditional event. It's a strange world.

What sending my postcards from Frishman beach in Tel Aviv in June and from the Arnona neighborhood in Jerusalem in May makes me think is: why can't the extremes meet? Israel is a complicated place, but why do the US and the UK of 2018 each see us so one-sidedly?

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 1, 2018

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2018

Prince William and Netta Barzilai  photo: Ben Kalmer
Prince William and Netta Barzilai photo: Ben Kalmer
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