Fadel Shana’s flak jacketWhen you write as much as I do about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, you come to be almost on a first-name basis with some of the official spokespeople on both sides. So it is that I’ve read Mark Regev’s attempts to paint Israel in the best light possible in news stories around the world. I’ve heard him regularly on BBC radio as well. I can’t decide whether he’s just a decent bloke trying to do a thankless job; or whether he’s a more perfidious, fork-tongued figure for the role he plays.
This Ynetnews report on continuing Palestinian protests against the Israeli murder of Gaza Reuters photographer Fadel Shana, makes me lean toward the latter view:
“We have expressed regret and the army is conducting an investigation. It’s a tragedy,” said Spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Mark Regev. “There was no identification that he was a journalist. Had it been clear he was a journalist, the shell would not have been fired.”
Regev’s claim isn’t merely a mistake since every media report on Shana’s death clearly states that not only was the journalist wearing a press marking on his person, his vehicle too was clearly marked (see photos).
No Israeli source has ever contradicted this part of the story. So that would make Regev an outright liar. If he had wished, Regev could’ve claimed that the tank crew didn’t SEE the markings. That at least might be somewhat credible. But you’ll notice Regev dispenses with such nuance making a far more sweeping claim.
A shameful performance but unfortunately par for the course. If Regev had been in the hotel room with Olmert and Talansky when they exchanged envelopes filled with cash, the PR flack would’ve pointed out that the envelopes had no identification that there was cash inside and had they been clearly marked as “Cash” or “Bribe,” they would’ve been refused on the spot.
A guy like you really needs to go to Gaza and get the “truth”. I fully expect to see your byline from Gaza city. Surely you would be among friends there.
Mark Regev is Jerusalem Bob, just like Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf was Baghdad Bob. A government spokesperson tells what he is paid for. In Saddam’s Iraq’s and present Israel’s case these Bob’s are certainly no fountains of the truth.
Bill: In terms of rhetorical quality, this is a big improvement over suggesting that Israel kill Norman Finkelstein instead of merely deporting him. Congratulations Bill. You just keep getting better.
Dear Richard, I am in Australia, we see him too. In light of the most recent reports of the bombing of the school(s) in Gaza I can’t express the feeling of illness i have when i listen to this ‘person’. How can anyone say the things how does and live with them? Your consideration of him is perhaps erring on the generous side. Everyone has a choice. He really seems to have made his. I have lived in the middle east and I know Hamas are no band of angels, and possibly their most endearing feature is their lack of media savvy, but Regev makes me feel so ….outraged. As my wife says, he talks of peoples deaths as if he were bartering in the market place. Sickening.
Hitler would be proud of Mark Regen
Anne: That’s a tad strong, don’t you think?
Hi Bing,
Regev was born in Australia as Mark Freiberg. I always thought we Australians were a nation of people willing to give others “a fair go”. I guess when some of us become Israelis we loose that notion. I hope he never comes back to reside in the country that gave him his start in life. Sickening is right.
I cringe everytime I hear this wanker on the news. I feel ashamed that we (Australia) educated this moron.
The absolute crap he spouts is both so extremely sickening and so one-eyed Israel PR riddled that it really, really makes me wish I could cross his path and punch some sense into PR robot idiot.
The worst thing is: the fact that this oxygen thief really believe the crap he spouts.
Israel is committing WAR CRIMES and they should be held accountable for their actions against killing innocent children and women, UN workers and media who get in their way. They act as if they are the innocent ones, when in fact they are trying to piss IRAN off, so IRAN fires rockets into Israel and that will give Israel the excuse to drop nukes on IRAN. This all about starting a bigger war. Hopefully the new Obama admin handles Israel differently than the Bush admin..
He is a vile excuse for a human being. Born in Australia I wider how he felt about the Aboriginals.
Mark Regev’s mother seems to be Freda Freiberg. What’s intersting is that Freda Freiberg is an Australian Film critic who has written a great deal about Japanese cinema, and the cinema of the holocaust.
She wrote this review of an Israeli film at a Jewish Film Festival in Melbourne.
“One was an Israeli documentary which unflinchingly and disturbingly confronted the violence and rancour of Arab-Jewish conflict in Hebron, past and present. In it, the granddaughter of survivors of the 1929 massacre of the Jewish community of Hebron interviews elderly members of her family and their friends who recall the shocking event while also recalling instances of friendship between the two communities. The archival footage is disturbing, as are the scenes of Hebron today under Israeli military rule. But two of the elderly women interviewees, who lost parents and siblings in the 1929 massacre, were surprisingly free of rancour and displayed an impressive breadth of understanding. What I Saw in Hebron ultimately endorses the wisdom of the old, as against the fanaticism of the young, and was thus another case of strong representation for senior citizens.”
If only she could please pass on some of the wisdom of the old to her fanatical son.
He’s a decent guy who has been hearing and telling lies for so long he believes them. Hitler had the same sort of people spinning propaganda to cover his atrocities. They were not allowed to claim they were just doing what they were told and neither should Regev. These people live in box where all they hear are their own beliefs (lies) and their own views (lies) and they are incapable of formulating any sort of rational truth. It’s a form of mental illness actually. If Regev and his ilk presented at a psychiatric clinic and mouthed the same sorts of things, running counter to all reality, they would be considered delusional and they would be committed.
This guy’s face/voice has been popping up on my TV now for weeks. Felt compelled to look up his name on Google, it led me here. I’m so proud of Jon Snow just cutting him off tonight.
Wow..what a great forum. And my post is going to be long. I am Australian living in Abu Dhabi, just saw this guy on CNN and googled him too, as I was wondering ‘surely thats not an Aussie as a mouthpiece for this?’…I do feel he is like many PR corporate types who sanitise everything in business speak, “we are looking into it”, “it IS terrible to see such images”. To me, this type of PR-ing is becoming more and more insidious, and dangerous.
On a side note, I never understood the conflict before I left Australia, it was in my ‘too hard’ basket, off my radar compared to more pressing issues in our region that I was interested in. I made sure I read up on it before I left, and since being here, even before this new offensive, I’ve see a lot more media coverage of the Palestinian side, but also, it’s like we are getting more accurate coverage. I never thought I would have an opinion but I am really feeling that Israel is causing way too much harm, are shocking me with their agression, I just wish people could see at home what we see here…even I am getting frustrated at the lack of response from US and other countries on this,…and its just going to inflame more anger on innocent jewish people everywhere else in the world. I tell you, it feels a world away from Coogee, but now I understand why the synagogue around the corner had security.
To select a wanker like Mark Regev as a government spokesperson really does provide an indication as to how disproportionate and dillusional the current Israeli government is.
What pisses me (and probably many others) off even more is the fact that Israel still allows settlers to steal Palestinian land and property, especially using religion as justification (1000’s of years ago….get over it….just about every other culture has by now after that amount of time).
Still denies they have nuclear weapons. Most of the world also still pretends they don’t…but know they do.
Still tries all it can to deny nuclear power or most forms of technology to any neighbouring country.
Still very actively spies on its allies…yes…even the ones that help them the most (even though some governments just seem to turn a blind eye to it).
Still have a large population of religious extremists, and allow them to get into government……if not just in Israel, but in other countries as well.
A situation that is not really any better than other “religion controlled countries”.
Still treats and seemingly sees many other cultures as primitive…..and therefore backward and dangerous.
Still unbelievably wonders why the Palestinian people despise them so much…………
I know no country is perfect….but Israel is much, much, much further from it than what a lot of people seem to think or pretend.
PS. I have Jewish friends, Muslim friends, Buddhist friends, Christian friends and Athiest friends. I am definitely not religion or culturally motivated in any way.
richard,
I have seen mark regev lie time and time again when the international community criticizes highly questionable israeli behavior. his current defense of the gaza offensive is but the most recent installment. in 2006 when kofi annan suggested that the idf intentionally attacked the UN base at qana (i watched this is switzerland but never seen to find the same footage in the states) mark regev said “israel would never do such a thing” even though kofi annan said the UN staff at qana were in radio contact with the idf constantly giving them their coordinates and telling the idf explicitly that the bombs were getting closer and closer. i have heard mark regev defend israeli actions with this “israel would never do such a thing” defense at least 3 times.
i just watched mark regev downplay and perform major damage control on the issue of israeli soldiers saying they were ordered to target unarmed civilians in gaza. despite idf testimony, regev basically said it was all hearsay !
hopefully most people live in a different moral universe than mark regev.
i see bill pearlman has soiled your site with his baseless ad hominems.
best wishes,
Richard, FYI: Dr Knight & Mr Jekyll at http://middleeastrealitycheck.blogspot.com
Sorry that should read …& Mr Regev
Just how do you get to express such loathing and contempt for Regev such that he actually gets the message. He is the incarnation of evil and disgrace to the Jewish state and its lopsided, unfair, discriminatory and criminal activity and behaviour towards the Palestinian people.
How do the ordinary people, those who can see through the heartless and cruel actions of that state, get to change anything. We are so powerless against this injustice.
Mark Regev, is suck a f. liar, with no credit, an evil look with an evil mind. He is probably worst than Hitler when it comes to killing innocent people. Big hame on Israel for having killed innocent victim carrying humannitarian aid to palestinians. I just want to spew on this guy. He really looks like a villain.
He is not like Hitler as he was autistic and a drug addict this man totally believes in his beliefs and that of the Israeli Govenment when you hear him talk he demands that what hse says in right and you have to listen and take notice of him there is something about him that repels you as he try s to cover his Aussie back ground he is the bully in the play ground who views himself as superior to others who believes what he wants to believe like that the Israelis are the chosen ones which hand on why heart they are not and never have been he is a produced of brain washing I remember reading about the kibbutz training were the parents are out working and the kids are looked after by what men like him coming and talking war. the further he goes up the ladder in the Israeli Govenment to more powerful he thinks he is in that respect Hitler was like that egged on by others, very dangerous people to deal with they have many psychopathic traits.
Mark Regev may be a lot of bad things, but comparing him in any way to Hitler is way off base. He’s a PR flack for God’s sake. Not a mass murderer.
mark regev is not a politician or policy maker and surely criticism of israeli policy should be levelled directly against the government itself, also throwing insults at individuals like this and making comparison with Hitler etc is distatseful. what is even more to the point with all this hate throwing there is little attention given in these blogs to those who are the victims of all Irael’s myopic policy towards the Palestinians, that’s the Palestinians themselves. Forgotten them, have you…?
Mark Regev is a shameful human being, a disgrace, a liar, a fabricator, a deceiver and he is totally contemptible.
Nobody has ever made me want to punch my TV as much as this scumbag. It makes my blood boil just looking at this creature.
I am amazed that this twat still has his job as the official Israeli liar because nobody actually believes a word he says anymore.
This guy represents in person, everything Israel is as a state. His spin, rejection and denial of Israel’s mass murder of innocent children, ethnic cleansing and apartheid policies makes him as guilty as those who perpetrated them because he knows the truth, how can he not? He must think Israel has the right to act the way they do
I not think Mark Regev believes in God, I think he is a Godless bastard with no moral framework whatsoever
Viva Palestine
I dislike seeing Mark Regev’s face almost as much as I dislike seeing the face of the Australian Prime Minister and I’m an 6th or 7th generation Anglo Irish Australian.
Hamas was the choice of the Palestinian people, and despite the reaction by Europe, USA and Israel, they were not given a chance because they refused to recognise Israel.
They should have been given enough rope (Hamas) and let the people make up their minds. Things might have improved.
This way, we have pressure from Israeli Askenazis who have gone extremist, and are as extreme as the extreme Islamists. They are exactly the same and both belong to the Twelve Arab Tribes. No different and they are brothers.
Much of the world has had enough of shielding Israel, I think. Their inhumanity now, and when they turfed out Palestinians overnight in their pyjames and pushed down their homes the same day around late 1940s, I cannot forgive and will not forget.
Their brutal, desperate, over the top measures shows both exasperation and a lack of humanity and inclination to follow the Ten Commandments. There is nothing religious or ethical about Israel’s acts. They are extremists too, and the more they oppress others, the more determination not to be broken and to fight back their enemies will be! Israelis have shown themselves unable to progress to a higher social level.
Mark Regev’s is now spinning for Netanyahu’s “Historical land of ISrael” whcih means reejcting the 1967 borders on the basis that these are “ancestral Jewish lands”. I trust he will be showing the same concern for theland his parents occupy in Melbourne Australia and will be campaigning to evict his mum and return her ancestral lands to the Aboriginal tribes who lived there 2000 years ago.