Mel Gibson knew what he was doing when stayed away from the media for a couple of years. Now he’s back and everyone’s just keeping on yabbing at those anti-Semitic slurs he reportedly made in 2006. But Gibson, it seems, is taking the rather offensive route in handling those members of the press who bring it up, during his press tour for “The Edge of Darkness”. As was the case with KTLA critic Sam Rubin.

But if Gibson had to have asked Rubin whether he has “a dog in this fight” (which in Yiddish translates into “Are you a Jew?”), he probably knew that when sitting across a journalist from Israel, she’d have quite a few dogs in this fight.

Yesterday, “Yedioth Achronot”’s weekend entertainment supplement, “7 Nights”, ran an interview with Gibson conducted in Los Angeles by reporter Tal Orion. Gibson chose to break the ice with a joke the demonstrates his loose tongue.

Here is Gibson’s joke:

A man walks into a diner and asks for a Titburger. The waitress says “I beg your pardon?” so the man, getting a grip on himself, says he meant “a hamburger”, then apologizes and tells the waitress that he often says things he doesn’t control. “Just this morning”, the man says, “I wanted to ask my wife to prepare me an omelet but it came out ‘You bitch, you ruined my life!’”.

So, who’s ruined whose life exactly?

When the interview was nearing its end, Ms. Orion got the nerve to ask THE question. This time Gibson wanted to brush the question away once more, blaming it on anyone but himself, and then he takes a different approach and tries to flirt and kiss it away:

- People in Israel are very suspicious of you right now.
“Why?”, he exclaimed.
“Last question!”, his publicist said suddenly, and a number of assistants rose to their feet.
- Maybe because of those unnecessary remarks you made in 2006. You blamed the Jews for all the wars in the world.
“I was drunk. I was upset. And it got out because that cop ran to the press and blew it out of proportion and made a mess of things. I apologized not once but three times. So what’s the problem? Do I need to apologize again?”
- Do you feel you should apologize once more?
“You tell me, should I? Do I need to apologize to you? If I do, I will definitely do it. If you ask me to. I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.”
“Your time is up”, the publicist says, but Gibson, on his way out of the room, returns to me and says “I apologize”, and plants a kiss on my cheek. “I’m really sorry. I hate being the bad guy”.