South Africa's Cape Town Opera has turned down an appeal from Nobel peace prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu to call off a tour of Israel. He said it would be as inappropriate as it had been for international firms to visit South Africa during apartheid.

Israel's foreign workers, who mostly comes from Asia, are introducing Tel Aviv's gourmet chefs to Asian cuisine, which has been wildly popular.

When two young Jews were shot dead at a gay club in Israel last summer, New York’s gay Jewish community responded immediately. The West Village congregation for gay Jews, Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, reached out to friends they made in Israel through a city-to-city partnership established 10 years ago.

The peace process has been major news in almost all Arab media before, during and after direct negotiations started between the Palestinians and the Israelis. In broadsheet newspapers it is front page news; in broadcast media it usually comes first or second. The mood of the commentary and analysis was quite ambivalent.

Lebanon today witnessed one of the largest public diplomacy “events” staged by Iran, in the form of a formal state visit by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. While a state visit as such is not normally framed as a public diplomacy event, Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon was marked by a degree of idiosyncrasy. This is not just because of Ahmadinejad himself (who excelled at the role of modest and earnest leader), but also because of the role played by Hizbullah in this public diplomacy event.

The Foreign Ministry launched its official Youtube channel on Wednesday at the web address youtube.com/Israel, with the channel featuring nearly 130 videos about life in Israel. Until Wednesday, all of the Foreign Ministry’s videos were presented on the Israel MFA page.

The Palestinian Authority's Education Ministry approved the use of a history textbook that offers the central narratives of both Palestinians and the Zionist movement, marking the first time that the accepted Israeli position is being presented to schoolchildren in the West Bank.

Around 300 Israeli Druze are for the first time to be allowed into Syria for a religious visit after they were given permission by the interior ministry, the head of Israel's Druze community said on Thursday.