Events in Egypt and countries across the Middle East and North Africa have shown in the 'Arab Spring' that internet platforms and technologies should be seen for what they are: effective tools for the conduct of political campaigns in authoritarian contexts.

Social media users can easily mobilize demonstrations of millions in Tahrir Square and elsewhere in Egypt. However, to see the real prospects for political and economic reforms, we must examine the nature of the grass-root movement, the core issues that the newly-emerging governments face and the choices they are likely to make.

Now that the events of 2011 have turned Arab politics upside down, U.S. policymakers are facing what they hate most: irrelevance. Those who were so long ignored by American public diplomacy are finally gaining power as evidenced by the successes of the Ennahda Party in Tunisia...

For years, Hosni Mubarak and other Arab leaders relied on a straightforward mantra: “It’s me or the Islamists.” American presidents and other Western leaders shuddered at the word “Islamists” and embraced their thuggish allies. What could be worse than Islamists?

U.S. public diplomacy followed that pattern. Over the years, there was some splendid rhetoric from Condoleezza Rice, Barack Obama, and a few others, but the “public” at which public diplomacy was aimed was always carefully limited to exclude the Islamist community.

Indeed, the elections that took place in Egypt and Tunisia have demonstrated that the young, multilingual and Internet-savvy spokesmen for the revolution who had become prominent on Al Jazeera and CNN television coverage from Tahrir Square lack any strong base of electoral support.

While Twitter and Facebook gave rise to the Arab Spring, websites like "Egypt Votes" offered valuable opportunities for open communication by ordinary citizens with untold millions of Egyptians, worldwide, holding the greatest promise for ushering the Middle East to a period of true and lasting democracy.

According to the latest Pew survey, in almost all the countries surveyed, the use of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter didn't change much from 2010 to 2011. Two notable exceptions were Egypt, where 28% of respondents now use social networks -- up from 18% last year -- and Russia, where social-networking use rose from 33% to 43%.

...the Arab Spring could serve as an opportunity for Israel to re-think important aspects of its public diplomacy and political programs. In this respect, Israel’s relationship with one (albeit non-Arab) Muslim country could serve as a model to guide Israeli leaders as they redefine our relations with countries closer to home. That country is Indonesia.