Mark RegevYouTube/Revelation TV

The Cambridge Union has today announced that it will be hosting the Israeli ambassador, in a move that has been denounced by pro-Palestinian activists in the University.

Mark Regev, who has been the Israeli ambassador to the UK since replacing Daniel Taub in April, will speak on the 26th October. He appeared at the Oxford Union earlier this year.

Speaking to Varsity, a spokesperson for Cambridge’s Palestinian Society (PalSoc) condemned the decision, saying: “[t]his is the second time in two years that the Union has invited a representative of the Israeli government. A government which continues to carry out policies of oppression, break international law and deny the human rights of the Palestinians.”

“Last year Palsoc attempted to provide a Palestinian speaker for a Union event with representatives from both sides, but was told this wasn’t possible as the Israelis had a veto. Palsoc was asked this year to provide a speaker for an event and is happy to provide a Palestinian representative so both sides can be heard but is yet to hear back from the Union with a reply,” they added.

Last year, PalSoc planned a demonstration outside the Union when Yiftah Curiel, the head spokesman for the Israeli embassy, came to speak.

Then-president of the Israeli society, Joel Collick, said the protest was “indicative of [PalSoc’s] longer-term approach of refusal to engage in dialogue and for the sake of performing inappropriate public displays”.

The ambassador’s invitation comes in the aftermath of the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee report, which came down hard on the National Union of Students for not doing enough to prevent anti-Semitism on campus. The report also cited the events seen in the Oxford Labour Club, where the Chairman of the club quit over such concerns.

He recently wrote for The Guardian criticising Shami Chackrabati’s report on the Labour Party for letting anti-Semites off the hook, invoking the spirit of Cable Street, an incident in 1936 when Jewish and Socialist demonstrators prevented the British Union of Fascists from marching into the Jewish East End.

Born in Australia, Regev began his career as a lecturer on international relations and strategy at the Israeli Defence Forces Staff College. He was made official spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2007.

In this position, he gained prominence and drew criticism as he presented the Israeli line in interviews to the international media during the 2006 Second Lebanon War, the 2008-9 Gaza War, the 2012 Operation Pillar of Defense, and the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, and Operation Brother’s Keeper.

In one such interview in 2014, Regev was confronted by Channel 4 News anchor Jon Snow over Israeli military attacks on Al-Wafa hospital and an attack which killed three young boys on a beach. Regev persisted in claiming that “the Israeli military does not target civilians”.

Indeed, Regev has never shied away from defending Israeli in anything but the strongest terms. Last year he told another Channel 4 journalist, Jonathan Miller, that a UN Commission investigating potential war crimes in Gaza was “institutionally biased”, describing it as a “kangaroo court”.

Regev – the son of a holocaust survivor – is seen by colleagues as a very effective diplomat and spokesperson. Regev once joked that “usually when you see me, it’s bad news”, but a British diplomat told The Independent that Regev has “the ability to hold the line when there is bad publicity, as has often been the case, of course, with Israel”. From the beginning of his appointment as the Prime Minister's spokesman he insisted that he did not want to “hide” behind the anonymous title of “official spokesperson”, preferring to be identified.

Regev was involved with the Zionist Labour Youth movement as a young man and has himself commented on the problem of anti-Semitism within the left, saying that elements of left-wing parties were “deluding themselves” in thinking that there was no problem with anti-Semitism.

Perhaps more than any other geopolitical issue, Israel-Palestine has ignited tensions on campuses around the Western world. However, many have expressed concerns that anti-Zionist student activism has slipped in to anti-Semitism.

Police were called to King’s College London in January after the college’s Israel Society was attacked by demonstrators. Eyewitnesses said that chairs were thrown and windows smashed before the venue was evacuated and police were called.

Regev himself recently caused controversy at SOAS in London. After his visited Valerie Amos, the Director of the university, demonstrators demanded that the university release the meeting’s minutes.