The King's visit to Auschwitz gives us hope in dark times
We have cause as a society to bemoan the state of many of our institutions. There are failings everywhere we care to look: political failings, police failings, local authority failings – the list goes on. We could be forgiven for thinking nothing in this country works properly anymore.
But there is one institution of which we can be justly proud. Other nations envy it and rightly so.
Where politicians too often divide us, the monarchy unites us as a nation. The King has had vast experience over more than half a century of being an effective emollient, soothing troubled waters and healing wounded parts of our society. And that work is needed now more than ever.
The monarchy remains an institution that undoubtedly works – and it is one of which we can all be proud. It is as needed now as it has been at any point in our history.
Tomorrow, the King travels to Auschwitz to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of that place of unparalleled horror.
The monarch's support for the Jewish faith shines out like a beacon in troubled times.
The King attended the current Chief Rabbi's installation. He has commissioned paintings of Holocaust survivors to help preserve their memory. The King accommodated the Chief Rabbi overnight at Clarence House before his coronation, so Sir Ephraim Mirvis could attend to his religious observance.
Needless to say, it isn't just the Jewish community who the King has supported for so long.
He deeply admires the teachings of Islam, and has cultivated the most extraordinary respect and admiration from Middle Eastern leaders, and he has done so quietly and without any political agenda.
He respects the Greek Orthodox faith so much he has stayed for a respite from the world in the remote monastery of Mount Athos. He arranged for Sikhs and Hindus to be important symbolic parts of his ancient coronation ceremony.
And it isn't just faith groups who have benefited from his support.
On the world stage he wowed audiences in France by delivering his speech in French. When he spoke German on his state visit there they were lost in admiration.
When he travels to the Arabian peninsula, his decades cultivating personal relationships means he is feted as one of their most distinguished guests.
But in the UK too, the work of the Prince's Trust (now the King's Trust) has changed the lives of more than a million disadvantaged young people over the past 40 years.
The King's environmentalism and sustainability agenda, his ideals on architecture, his support for the military, traditional crafts and industries, and the arts have all made a real difference. In a disadvantaged part of Scotland, his support for the local community around Dumfries House has transformed the area and its economy for miles around.
The King transcends politics.
As he visits Auschwitz this week, the distressing human evil of the place will no doubt be felt very powerfully.
But we just know he will do his duty. He refuses to allow any illness to get in the way.
The service he exemplifies is not only rare, it is – especially with failing institutions all around us – more precious than ever.
Small wonder his skills in bringing people together are in such demand.
Sir Michael Ellis has served as attorney general for England and Wales. He was MP for Northampton North from 2010 to 2024
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNBC
38 minutes ago
- CNBC
How Trump went from opposing Israel's strikes on Iran to reluctant support
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump had opposed Israeli military action against Iran, favoring negotiations over bombing. But in the days before the strikes began, he became convinced that Israel's heightened anxiety over Iran's nuclear enrichment capabilities was warranted. After a pivotal briefing from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, on Israel's plans and U.S. options for supporting its operation, he gave tacit approval to Israel to have at it and decided to provide limited U.S. backing. When Caine briefed him on June 8, Trump was increasingly frustrated with Iran for not responding to the latest proposal for a nuclear deal. He still remained hopeful that his Middle East peace negotiator, Steve Witkoff, who had been scheduled to conduct another round of peace talks in the region Sunday, could soon get an agreement over the line. Trump was also facing private pressure from longtime allies who advocate more isolationist policies and wanted him to stop Israel from taking military action or at least withhold U.S. support for any such operation. This account of Trump's thinking leading up to the Israeli operation is based on interviews with five current U.S. officials and two Middle Eastern officials, as well as two people with knowledge of the deliberations, two former U.S officials familiar with the deliberations and a Trump ally. The White House didn't immediately comment, and the Defense Department didn't respond to a request for comment. In recent weeks, Israel grew more convinced that the threat posed by Tehran was getting increasingly serious and urgent. And while he had already decided not to stand in Israel's way, on Thursday, only hours before the strikes began, Trump remained at least publicly hopeful that diplomacy would win the day. "I don't want them going in, because I think it would blow it — might help it actually, but it also could blow it, but we've had very good discussions with Iran," Trump told reporters at a bill signing ceremony. "I prefer the more friendly path." Behind the scenes, the Israelis had already laid much of the groundwork for Trump's measured change. Trump had hoped Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could be persuaded not to mount an attack. But over the past week, he came to accept that Israel was determined to neutralize Iran's nuclear capabilities and that the United States would have to lend some military support for defensive purposes, as well as some intelligence support. After the strikes began Thursday evening, the administration took pains to say it had provided no military assistance to Israel, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also the national security adviser, pointedly omitted any mention of U.S. support for Israel's operations in a statement. But the administration's public statements the next day did leave the door open to the United States' having provided some of the kind of intelligence Israel needed to mount an attack. Israel was able to conduct its initial strikes mostly with its own intelligence and capabilities — killing three military leaders and nine top scientists working on nuclear enrichment and destroying several nuclear enrichment sites, Israeli officials have said — but it also leaned heavily on American intelligence, bunker-buster bombs that were provided this year and air defense systems, some of which were scrambled into the region quickly in recent days. But Trump still wouldn't sign off on everything Israel wanted. After the start of their military campaign, the Israelis collected intelligence that could have allowed them to target and kill Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Netanyahu presented the operation to Trump, who opposed the plan altogether and wouldn't allow the United States to participate, according to two U.S. officials. No Americans had been killed in the conflict, so Trump didn't believe it would be appropriate to remove Khamenei, the political leader, and recommended against the Israelis' conducting the operation, the officials said. On Sunday, he appeared to advocate again for talks over strikes, saying on his social media platform, Truth Social: "Iran and Israel should make a deal, and will make a deal, just like I got India and Pakistan to make. ... Many calls and meetings now taking place. I do a lot, and never get credit for anything, but that's OK, the PEOPLE understand. MAKE THE MIDDLE EAST GREAT AGAIN!" Trump's approach to Israel's military campaign started to take form last Sunday at Camp David, the presidential retreat in rural Maryland. By that time, Israeli officials had already begun to share extensive information with U.S. officials about their potential operation. Caine, the Joint Chiefs chairman, briefed Trump and his national security team about the Israeli plans to strike Iran and U.S. options, according to two U.S. officials and one of the people familiar with the deliberations. Those options, the three sources said, included logistical support, like refueling Israeli jet fighters, sharing intelligence and using the American military's electronic warfare capabilities to help Israel jam enemy weapons and communications. Another option was to provide direct military support to Israel, even having U.S. jets drop munitions in active combat alongside Israeli fighters, for example. And yet another option, Caine briefed Trump, was to do nothing at all. Trump has consistently said he wants to extract the United States from foreign conflicts and has sought to use diplomacy to end Russia's war on Ukraine and the fighting in Gaza, albeit without success. But Israel was getting anxious, and it wasn't convinced that Trump's plan for peace in the region would work. Netanyahu and his war Cabinet didn't have faith in the U.S. negotiations with Iran taking place in Oman, despite Washington's public pronouncements that a deal was close. For months, the Trump administration has pressed the Israelis not to carry out strikes on Iran and warned that the United States wouldn't support them if they did. By the end of last week, the White House's public tone started to include more support for Israel, and in private it shifted from strong opposition against a widespread military operation to acceptance that it was likely to happen and less resistance to it. Among the reasons for Trump's change of heart was the declaration Thursday by the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, that Iran was in breach of its nonproliferation requirements. Trump was also concerned by the sense coming from Israel, the United States and the IAEA that Iran had achieved leaps in its nuclear program, and he didn't want to be the president on whose watch it was able to obtain a nuclear weapon. The United States had already been quietly moving some pieces into place to prepare for the Israeli attack. In recent days, U.S. European Command was told some of its P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance planes would be diverted to the Middle East to conduct surveillance. Then, in remarks that drew little attention last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that more than 20,000 U.S. anti-drone missiles meant for Kyiv had been diverted — to the Middle East. Trump and Netanyahu spoke several times in the previous week, but by last Monday, Trump had grown convinced that Israel was going to strike and was starting to put more pieces into place to help support the strike. Soon after that conversation last Monday, the Pentagon directed European Command to send a Navy destroyer to sit off Israel to help defend it in the likely event of a counterattack from Tehran, joining two more and a carrier strike group already there. Witkoff had been expected to travel to Muscat for peace talks as late as Friday. With the conflict still active, the U.S. side acknowledged that those talks were off. But it's not shutting the door to future discussions. "While there will be no meeting Sunday, we remain committed to talks and hope the Iranians will come to the table soon," an administration official told news organizations.
CNBC
3 hours ago
- CNBC
Israel vows Iran will 'pay the price' as attacks continue for a fourth day
Tehran will "pay the price" for its fresh missile onslaught against Israel, the Jewish state's defense minister warned Monday, as markets braced for a fourth day of ramped-up conflict between the regional powers. Fire exchanges have continued since Israel's Friday attack against Iran, with Iranian media reporting Tehran's latest strikes hit Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, home to a major refinery. CNBC has reached out to operator Bazan for comment on the state of operations at the Haifa plant, amid reports of damage to Israel's energy infrastructure. Iran's Revolutionary Guard said overnight it deployed "innovative methods" that "disrupted the enemy's multi-layered defense systems, to the point that the Zionist air defense systems engaged in targeting each other," according to a statement obtained by NBC News. Israel has widely depended on its highly efficient Iron Dome missile defense system to fend off attacks throughout regional conflicts — but even it can be overwhelmed if a large number of projectiles are fired. The fresh hostilities are front-of-mind for investors, who have been weighing the odds of further escalation in the conflict and spillover into the broader oil-rich Middle East, amid concerns over crude supplies and the key shipping lane through the Strait of Hormuz connecting the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Oil prices retained the gains of recent days and at 09:19 a.m. London time, Ice Brent futures with August delivery were trading at $73.81 per barrel, down 0.57% from the previous trading session. The Nymex WTI contract with July expiry was at $72.7 per barrel, 0.38% lower. Elsewhere, however, markets showed initial signs of shrugging off the latest hostilities early on Monday. Spot prices for key safe-haven asset gold retreated early morning, down 0.42% to $3,417.83 per ounce after nearly notching a two-year-high earlier in the session, with U.S. gold futures also down 0.65% to $ 3,430.5 Tel Aviv share indices pointed higher, with the blue-chip TA-35 up 0.99% and the wider TA-125 up 1.33%. European stock markets opened higher Monday, meanwhile, and U.S. stock futures were also in the green. Luis Costa, global head of EM sovereign credit at Citigroup Global Markets, signaled the muted reaction could be, in part, attributed to hopes of a brisk resolution to the conflict. "So markets are obviously, you know, bearing in mind all potential scenarios. There are obviously potentially very bad scenarios in this story," he told CNBC's "Europe Early Edition" on Monday. "But there is still a way out in terms of, you know, a faster resolution and bringing Iran to the table, or a short continuation here, of a very surgical and intense strike by the Israeli army." As of Monday morning, Israel's national emergency service Magen David Adom reported four dead and 87 injured following rocket strikes at four sites in "central Israel," reporting collapsed buildings, fire and people trapped under debris. Accusing Tehran of targeting civilians in Israel to prevent the Israel Defense Forces from "continuing the attack that is collapsing its capabilities," Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, a close longtime ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a Google-translated social media update that "the residents of Tehran will pay the price, and soon." The IDF on Sunday said it had in turn "completed a wide-scale wave of strikes on numerous weapon production sites belonging to the Quds Force, the IRGC and the Iranian military, in Tehran." CNBC could not independently verify developments on the ground. The U.S.' response is now in focus, given its close support and arms provision to Israel, the unexpected cancellation of Washington's latest nuclear deal talks with Iran, and President Donald Trump's historically hard-hitting stance against Tehran during his first term. Trump, who has been pushing Iran for a deal over its nuclear program, has weighed in on the conflict, opposing an Israeli proposal to kill Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to NBC News. Discussions about the conflict are expected to take place during the ongoing meeting of the G7, encapsulating Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S., along with the European Union. —
New York Post
5 hours ago
- New York Post
Iran's latest strikes on Tel Aviv, Haifa kill at least five
Iranian missiles struck Israel's Tel Aviv and the port city of Haifa before dawn on Monday, destroying homes and fuelling concerns among world leaders at this week's G7 meeting that the battle between the two old enemies could lead to a broader regional conflict. At least five people were killed in the latest Iranian strikes, the national emergency service said, bringing Israel's death toll to at least 18 since Friday. At least 100 more were wounded in the overnight strikes, part of a wave of attacks by Tehran in retaliation for Israel's pre-emptive strikes targeting Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Advertisement 6 Israeli air defense systems are activated to intercept Iranian missiles over the Israeli city of Tel Aviv amid a fresh barrage of Iranian rockets on June 16, 2025. AFP via Getty Images Search and location operations were underway in Haifa where around 30 people were wounded, emergency authorities said, as dozens of first responders rushed to the strike zones. Fires were seen burning at a power plant near the port, media reported. Advertisement Video footage showed several missiles over Tel Aviv and explosions could be heard there and over Jerusalem. Several residential buildings in a densely populated neighbourhood of Tel Aviv were destroyed in a strike that blew out the windows of hotels and other nearby homes just a few hundred meters from the US Embassy branch in the city. The US ambassador said the building sustained minor damage, but there were no injuries to personnel. Guydo Tetelbaun was in his apartment in Tel Aviv when the alerts came in shortly after 4 a.m. Advertisement 6 An explosion erupts from a missile fired from Iran in Tel Aviv, Israel, 16 June 2025. ATEF SAFADI/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock 'As usual, we went into the (shelter) that's right across the street there. And within minutes, the door of the (shelter) blew in,' the 31-year-old chef said. 'A couple of people came in bloody, all cut up. And then when we came to the apartment, after it quietened down, we saw there wasn't much of it… Walls are caved in, no more glass,' he added. 'It's terrifying because it's so unknown. This could be the beginning of a long time like this, or it could get worse, or hopefully better, but it's the unknown that's the scariest.' Advertisement The predawn missiles struck near Shuk HaCarmel, a popular market in Tel Aviv that typically draws large crowds of residents and tourists buying fresh fruits and vegetables, and to popular bars and restaurants. A residential street in nearby Petah Tikva and a school in ultra-Orthodox Jewish city Bnei Brak were also hit. 6 People evacuate after a missile launched from Iran struck Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday June 16, 2025. AP 'NEW METHOD' Iran's Revolutionary Guards said the latest attack employed a new method that caused Israel's multi-layered defence systems to target each other. 'The initiatives and capabilities used in this operation, despite the comprehensive support of the United States and Western powers and the possession of the most up-to-date and newest defence technology, led to the successful and maximum hitting of the missiles on the targets in the occupied territories,' it said. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strikes. Israeli officials have repeatedly said its 'Iron Dome' defence system is not 100% and warned of tough days ahead. The death toll in Iran had reached at least 224, with 90% of the casualties reported to be civilians, an Iranian health ministry spokesperson said. Israel's military said on Monday morning it had struck again at command centres belonging to the Revolutionary Guard and Iran's military. LEADERS MEET Advertisement Group of Seven leaders began gathering in the Canadian Rockies on Sunday with the Israel-Iran conflict expected to be a top priority. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said his goals for the summit include for Iran to not develop or possess nuclear weapons, ensuring Israel's right to defend itself, avoiding escalation of the conflict and creating room for diplomacy. 'This issue will be very high on the agenda of the G7 summit,' Merz told reporters. 6 The Iron Dome, the Israeli air defense system, intercepts missiles fired from Iran, over Tel Aviv, Israel, 16 June 2025. ATEF SAFADI/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock Advertisement Before leaving for the summit on Sunday, US President Donald Trump was asked what he was doing to de-escalate the situation. 'I hope there's going to be a deal. I think it's time for a deal,' he told reporters. 'Sometimes they have to fight it out.' Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian told parliament on Monday that the country has no intention to produce nuclear weapons but it would continue to pursue its right to nuclear energy and research. Brent crude futures were up $0.70, or 1%, to $74.94 a barrel in Asian trade on Monday having jumped as much as $4 earlier in the session. While the spike in oil prices has investors on edge, stock and currency markets were little moved in Asia. 'It's more of an oil story than an equity story at this point,' said Jim Carroll, senior wealth adviser and portfolio manager at Ballast Rock Private Wealth. 'Stocks right now seem to be hanging on.' Advertisement 6 Responders are seen next to a damaged building following a strike by an Iranian missile in the Israeli city of Petah Tikva, east of Tel Aviv, on June 16, 2025. AFP via Getty Images TRUMP VETOES PLAN TO TARGET KHAMENEI, OFFICIALS SAY In Washington, two US officials told Reuters that Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan in recent days to kill Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. When asked about the Reuters report, Netanyahu told Fox News on Sunday: 'There's so many false reports of conversations that never happened, and I'm not going to get into that.' 'We do what we need to do,' he told Fox's 'Special Report With Bret Baier.' Advertisement Israel began the assault with a surprise attack on Friday that wiped out the top echelon of Iran's military command and damaged its nuclear sites, and says the campaign will escalate in the coming days. 6 Smoke billows from a site in the city of Haifa on June 16, 2025, following a fresh barrage of Iranian missiles. AFP via Getty Images Iran has vowed to 'open the gates of hell' in retaliation. TRUMP WARNS IRAN NOT TO ATTACK US TARGETS Trump has lauded Israel's offensive while denying Iranian allegations that the US has taken part and warning Tehran not to widen its retaliation to include US targets. Two US officials said on Friday the US military had helped shoot down Iranian missiles that were headed toward Israel. The US president has repeatedly said Iran could end the war by agreeing to tough restrictions on its nuclear program, which Iran says is for peaceful purposes but which Western countries and the IAEA nuclear watchdog say could be used to make an atomic bomb. The latest round of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the US, due last Sunday, was scrapped after Tehran said it would not negotiate while under Israeli attack.
