With Iran and world powers close to a nuclear deal, Israel's prime minister has launched a Twitter account in Farsi to reach out to the Iranian public. [...] Netanyahu's office said Monday that the Farsi account will publish content similar to Netanyahu's English and Hebrew accounts to engage directly with the Iranian people.

Apparently undeterred by the backlash over its last venture into cartoon diplomacy, Israel’s government released an animated video on Tuesday that equates the threat from Islamic State militants to that of a nuclear-armed Iran. The 28-second animation, uploaded to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s official accounts on social networks, attempts to erase the distinction between the Sunni Muslim extremists of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and their sworn enemies, the Shiite Muslim clerics who rule the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Two large potholes appeared on the highway leading to the village, the result of bad weather and human negligence. Numerous accidents occurred there, claiming many victims. As in Chelm, the who’s who of the village convened to discuss the serious problem. The first suggested positioning an ambulance at the site, while another wondered whether, if there was to be an ambulance, there should possibly also be a clinic to treat the injured. And a third, who was most worried about his tires, suggested opening a tire shop.

His newly minted deputy foreign minister might want Israel’s diplomats around the world to proudly assert the Jewish state’s historic right to all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. But does Benjamin Netanyahu seriously believe that Israel is going to be able to annex the West Bank, to bring the biblical Judea and Samaria under long-term Israeli sovereignty? Does he even want to?

In 2002, Benjamin Netanyahu declared during a US congressional hearing that "there is no doubt" that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that the way to solve the Iraqi threat was by toppling Saddam Hussein's regime. Toppling the Saddam regime, Netanyahu predicted, would have tremendous positive regional consequences: The region's nations would rise up against their tyrannical rulers and the Iranian regime would be undermined or would collapse.As we all know, what ended up happening was different.

What is Israel’s next move against Iran? The question is a complex one to answer, and partly deals with the question of how Israel deals with its primary ally going forward – the United States.

The Obama administration has broadcast that since Benjamin Netanyahu announcedthat there will never be a Palestinian state so long as Netanyahu remains Prime Minister of Israel, the U.S. may end its policy of blocking consideration of the Israel-Palestine conflict at the United Nations Security Council.

The Obama administration began its dealings with the Arab world on a hopeful note, as exemplified by the President's 2009 Cairo speech. Since then, despite increased U.S. public diplomacy efforts in the region, American policy has been perceived as hostile, or at least uncaring, toward Arabs.