“I’ll answer any question about Israel government policy and explain why we do something: that’s my job,” the Israeli Ambassador claimed as we sat down together for an interview during his second visit to Cambridge in a fortnight. This seems a pretty standard job description for the Ambassador to the United Kingdom, but for Mark Regev, whose ties with Netanyahu’s government include his stint as Chief Spokesman for the Prime Minister of Israel from 2007 to 2015, the line between diplomacy and politics is perhaps more blurred.

Regev, who previously appeared at the Union in late October, came this time for a talk hosted by a new society, the Cambridge Middle East and North Africa Forum (MENAF).

Netanyahu’s right-wing government has fallen under sharp criticism in recent years, both internally and on an international-scale, but public debate has often struggled to distinguish between criticism of the government and that of Israel’s right to exist as a country. When we asked if it is possible to be anti-Netanyahu without being anti-Israel or anti-Semitic, Regev had no doubts.

“Of course. If you want to argue about Israeli government policy ... then fine. That’s not anti-Semitism.” He elaborated: “anti-Semitism is if you go beyond that, if you demonise the Jewish state, if you say that the Jewish state has no right to exist”. He repeatedly stressed that Israel is a country like any other, and should be treated as such. “Many people in this country will criticise the policies of the French government, or the Russian government, or the American government: no one denies the right of those countries to exist”.

Regev was also keen to emphasise the centrality of debate to Israeli politics. “You have 120 members in our Knesset [Israel’s parliament]. We have very fierce and fiery debates about Israeli policy: what is right, what is wrong.”

However, Regev’s opinions are not shared by all. The Free Press Index has reported a drastic fall in the freedom of the Israeli press since Netanyahu assumed office in 2009, from being ranked 46 out of 167 in 2008 to 101 out of 179 in 2015. When we asked him to explain this shift, Regev’s responsed simply: “I don’t know their methodology”.

Some critics such as the Israeli newspaper Haaretz have accused Netanyahu’s government of a slide towards authoritarianism in its treatment of the media. The Prime Minister himself is Communications Minister for the country, and has been condemned for his close links to the Editor-in-Chief of the Israel Hayom newspaper, which have not been made fully transparent.

When we spoke to Regev about these details, he refuted the suggestion of anything problematic. “I don’t accept that at all. I think if you look at the Israeli press, it’s one of the most free on the planet.” Once again, he drew a parallel with other countries. “We have an aggressive press, very similar to the British press; you just have to listen to the radio in Israel, watch the television, read the newspapers, and you’ll see there’s a whole cacophony of criticism of the government, and that is part of our democracy.

“Anyone who tells me the press in Israel is not free, I don’t think they know what they’re talking about.”

Netanyahu’s government has also come into conflict with domestic NGOs. It has recently moved to change the National Service Law, meaning that young Israelis will no longer be able to volunteer with B’Tselem, a NGO which has been critical of governmental policy regarding the building of Israeli settlements.  We were curious as to how this squares with an Israel that is supposedly open to debate and ruled by a non-authoritarian government.

Regev was assertive in his response. “Israel’s NGO culture, I would argue, is more vibrant, and richer, [and] second to none on the planet. And I think anyone who objectively looks at the strength of the Israeli NGO community can see that.”

He explained that the issue lies in resistance to the newly introduced transparency law, not Netanyahu’s response to criticism. He defined this law as meaning that “if you’re an NGO, which means non-governmental organisation, and you’re getting funds from a foreign government (more than 50 per cent of your funds), you have to be transparent and declare that”.

However, critics have alleged that this law is unnecessary, and that it is an unfair way of targeting the NGOs most critical of the government, such as ‘Peace Now’ and ‘Breaking the Silence’. Regev on the contrary feels it is an essential step in securing the country’s internal democracy.

“I don’t think that’s an anti-democratic move, I think that’s a democratic move. I would ask you as British citizens – you had a very vibrant debate about membership of the EU, and you had two campaigns. If it was discovered that a foreign government was funding one of those campaigns, would the British voter have a right to know that? ... I would argue that’s transparency and the voter has the right to know.”

As Israeli Ambassador, Regev has spoken out publicly recently against the rise of a new form of anti-Semitism in British left-wing spheres. He elaborated on this in our discussion: “I think that’s one thing people have to understand: that anti-Semitism is a disease that infects, can infect, all strata of society”.

But 20th-century history and a label of being progressive can make the Left feel that this is not an issue they face. “I think it’s an important thing that people can’t be in denial. People can’t say because I’m on the left side of politics, or because I’m educated, ‘it can’t be about me.’ It can!”

“It’s very convenient for some people to say, oh you know, anti-Semitism: that’s the uneducated skinhead. We know that intellectual capability and education have not made people immune to anti-Semitism.”

He looked to literature to support his comments. “Look at someone like Voltaire, or Dostoevsky, people who no one doubts their intellectual prowess [sic], but if you look at what they actually wrote about Jews, it was anti-Semitic in the extreme.”

Mark Regev later expanded on this theme when speaking at the MENAF’s inaugural talk. In conversation with Professor Glen Rangwala, Regev was perhaps more circumspect about the problems Israel faces, although he remained keen to assert that Israel is not to be singled out.

“Israel has faults; the only country in the world that doesn’t have faults is North Korea.”

Mark Regev spoke at the inaugural Cambridge Middle East and North Africa Forum (MENAF) event on 17 November. More details about their upcoming events can be found at www.cmenaf.org