The Aussie boy who's at home spruiking for Israel

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This was published 5 years ago

The Aussie boy who's at home spruiking for Israel

By Latika Bourke

London: When Mark Regev saw Israel for the first time on a visit with his father, the Melbourne-born 16-year-old immediately felt at home.

"We saw the country from top to bottom and I felt very inspired and a sense of belonging and a desire that this is something I need to be involved in."

Now, 42 years later, Regev struts the world stage as Israel's ambassador to Britain, and one of the strongest international voices in favour of its sometimes contentious policies. What fuels him is a profound sense of mission about his adopted home.

Israel's Australian-born ambassador to Britain, Mark Regev, greets Prince William on his recent trip to Israel.

Israel's Australian-born ambassador to Britain, Mark Regev, greets Prince William on his recent trip to Israel.Credit: Twitter @markregev (with permission)

"Australia's a wonderful country. You've got this nice life in Australia. And yet the Jewish state is facing very serious challenges," he tells Fairfax Media from his office at the well-guarded Israeli embassy in the plush London suburb of Kensington.

"Is it right that you stay here and enjoy Australia, and people are fighting and dying?

"It's like a play going on and you can either be in the audience and watch ... or you can be a participant. And I decided I wanted to be a participant."

'Where I came from'

On a sideboard in Regev’s London office sits a photograph of his father and uncle among a group of 30 Jewish pupils. It was taken in either 1938 or 1939. Just four of the children would survive the Nazi regime.

"It's important to understand where I came from,” says Regev, holding the picture.

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Martin Frieberg (number 17), Mark Regev's father, survived the Nazis by hiding in the German countryside until liberation.

Martin Frieberg (number 17), Mark Regev's father, survived the Nazis by hiding in the German countryside until liberation.

“My father's family were German Jews who didn't get out before the war, they were stuck in Europe in the years of the Holocaust and they arrived in Australia in the late 1940s as postwar refugees."

Regev's father spent much of the war hiding with his parents, brother and newborn sister in the countryside around Magdeburg.

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"And so the idea that I grew up with, that I was born with, was Jewish people have to be conscious of their history and we have to make sure that we're no longer defenceless in the way we were in the 1930s and the 1940s," he says.

Safely in Australia, Regev was educated at Mount Scopus College, the Jewish day school that has turned out some of Australia’s highest achievers, including businessman Solomon Lew, cabinet minister Josh Frydenberg and fashion designer Peter Alexander.

But one school could not fulfil all his ambitions.

“Mount Scopus didn’t offer politics for the matric [final exams], so I went to Kew High once a week to [study] – I even remember the textbook,” Regev recalls.

His early politics were socialist. He lived on a kibbutz when he left Australia in 1982 for Israel then, after joining the diplomatic corps in 1990, he enjoyed a stellar rise through the ranks, with postings to China and Washington, DC.

US ambassador to Britain Lew Lukens (left) with Mark Regev at the candlelight vigil in Trafalgar Square to remember those who lost their lives in the Westminster terrorist attack.

US ambassador to Britain Lew Lukens (left) with Mark Regev at the candlelight vigil in Trafalgar Square to remember those who lost their lives in the Westminster terrorist attack.Credit: PA

In 2006, he took on the high-profile job of prime ministerial spokesperson for Ehud Olmert and later Benjamin Netanyahu, fronting the world’s media to defend Israel against increasing international criticism of its actions in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Since 2016, he has been posted to London, but visits his family - a mother, his father's sister, two sisters and brother, all still in Melbourne - every 12 to 18 months.

A front-row seat

As Israel's ambassador to London, Regev is in the front seat for one of the most tumultuous times in Britain's recent political history, with the vote to leave the European Union and the rise of the hard Left in Jeremy Corbyn, a Labour leader often criticised for his lacklustre response to issues of anti-Semitism in the party.

Is it right that you stay here and enjoy Australia, and people are fighting and dying?

Israeli ambassador to Britain, Mark Regev

Regev won’t detail his private discussions with Corbyn and is uncharacteristically short when pressed.

“The Labour Party leadership has said that they understand that this is a challenge, this is a problem and they are dealing with it,” he says.

Asked if he believes Labour’s assurances, Regev simply says: “I ... that's what they say.”

While insisting it is not the job of an ambassador to “scorecard” individual British politicians, Regev is as blunt as a diplomat can be when asked if he believes Corbyn is personally anti-Semitic: “He's always stressed that he is not."

Britain's Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, joins a march opposed to the visit of Donald Trump.

Britain's Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, joins a march opposed to the visit of Donald Trump.Credit: AP

One politician Regev is willing to discuss is Donald Trump – and with good reason. Trump’s decision to move the US embassy to contested Jerusalem, to the dismay of allies including Britain and Australia, sparked the recent deadly protests on the Gaza border but caused jubilation in Israel.

Regev says the broadly critical Western European view of Trump is not shared by those in the Middle East, who feel let down by Obama’s failure to insist on his red lines when Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad deployed chemical weapons on his own people in 2013.

“In my part of the world, his popularity is pretty good,” says Regev.

Trump’s withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal is also welcomed in the region, something Regev says the European states, which continue to stand by Obama’s deal, should consider.

A Palestinian medic treats a protester shot in the face with a teargas canister during protests in the Gaza Strip in June.

A Palestinian medic treats a protester shot in the face with a teargas canister during protests in the Gaza Strip in June. Credit: AP

“I would say to the Europeans ... Arabs and Israelis don't automatically agree on everything. When we do agree, people in Europe should pay attention.”

As ambassador, Regev spends more time with MPs than with the media but his core mission remains the same. Wherever he goes, he is repeatedly questioned about the Netanyahu government’s increasing heavy-handedness against the Palestinians. But he has a ready supply of well-rehearsed answers, regardless of who is asking.

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Like Netanyahu he blames the “Hamas terrorists” who he accuses of wanting to create as many victims as possible for propaganda – a trap that, by that measure, Israel repeatedly falls into. “I agree with that,” says Regev. “From our point of view every casualty is bad for Israel and good for Hamas and that's why we don't want to see casualties so that's why we make a maximum effort to avoid casualties.”

Peace through technology

In the 1970s, Regev says the Arab world had the advantage over Israel.

"We were in conflict with the Arab world and they had [oil]. And because they had this huge commodity that everyone in the international community needed they had leverage and they could galvanise international support for their positions," he explains.

Back then Israel’s attempts to build a car were so bad that the only customer was the government, who forced the clunky vehicles upon public servants. Last year, Intel paid $15 billion for the Israeli company Mobileye, which develops software for driverless cars.

Eventually, he says, paraphrasing Netanyahu, technology will provide the Israelis a way to protect themselves from Hamas incursions and potentially contribute to building a path to peace.

Amnon Shashua, co-founder and chief technology officer of Mobileye, speaks during a keynote address at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Amnon Shashua, co-founder and chief technology officer of Mobileye, speaks during a keynote address at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.Credit: Bloomberg

“I remember when I was sitting with my prime minister half a decade ago in my previous job and the tunnelling issue became very serious and he would approach foreign leaders and say 'do you have technology to deal with tunnelling?' And he spoke to specific countries about their experiences and there wasn't a technology. We developed that technology.”

Israel’s reputation as a “startup nation” is one of the nation's leading exports. Regev, now 58, sees it as critical to catching up to the Arab states now facing a reckoning in a world weaning itself off oil.

“Maybe in the 21st century Israel has the metaphoric oil and it's because we have the technology and the innovation that we are producing the ideas and the products that the global economy requires.

“We have leverage that we didn't use to have, and that's why countries like India, like China, like Japan, like South Korea, Singapore are all strengthening their relations with Israel.”

It is Israel's economic confidence that gives Regev optimism for peace.

“What you have today is you have more and more Arab states who see Israel as a legitimate part of the region as an ally and a partner and as the Palestinians are an integral part of the Arab world, and I think as you see the strengthening of those relationships, that has to affect our process with the Palestinians in a positive way,” he said.

Citing private government polling, Regev says the views of ordinary Arabs are shifting in Israel’s favour also, partly due to the regional threats posed by Islamic State and Iran's increasing influence.

“You're already seeing Arab public opinion change towards Israel and so I think it's only a matter of time before this moves onto another stage and helps us with the Palestinians.

"These are all positive signs.”

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