Getting the Israelis and Palestinians to the peace table wasn’t easy, and keeping them there is proving a challenge for a very determined Secretary of State John Kerry. His greatest worry has to be that both sides may be looking for a blame-avoiding excuse to take a walk. That may have been part of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s decision to announce he was calling off the fourth session of secret talks, which was to have been held Monday in Jericho.

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has refuted allegations that the Endless Possibilities tagline adopted by Malaysia was copied from Israel. According to PMO, the Government unveiled its latest branding concept four months before Israel announced the same theme as part of its tourism promotion. “Malaysia’s Endless Possibilities nation branding concept was unveiled in January 2013 at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

Israel has been forced to issue a formal apology to Japan over offensive comments posted on Facebook by its head of online public diplomacy. The apology followed a complaint by the Japanese ambassador to Israel, Hideo Sato, after senior government official Daniel Seaman disparaged commemorations for the victims of the 1945 atomic bombs, causing a wave of protests in Japan.

The BBC is due to cut comments made by violinist Nigel Kennedy about “apartheid” in Israel when it broadcasts his concert, performed with Palestinian artists as part of the Proms musical festival, on British television channels next week. The concert, held at London’s Royal Albert Hall last week, featured 17 musicians from the Palestine Strings, the troupe performed Vivaldi’s Four Seasons alongside Kennedy. Kennedy likened the situation in Israel to apartheid in South Africa.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has distanced itself from a series of obscene Facebook posts written by a senior official who is currently in charge of efforts by Israel to improve its image. Daniel Seaman, who was recently promoted to the post of head of Israeli public diplomacy on the internet, is the architect of a controversial new programme to mobilise hundreds of university students to write pro-Israel Facebook posts by giving them scholarships, and formerly served as director of Israel’s Government Press Office.

Israel is looking to hire university students to post pro-Israel messages on social media networks — without needing to identify themselves as government-linked, officials said Wednesday. The Israeli prime minister's office said in a statement that students on Israeli university campuses would receive full or partial scholarships to combat anti-Semitism and calls to boycott Israel online. It said students' messages would parallel statements by government officials.

There's a new front in the social media wars: Israeli university campuses. In cooperation with Israel's national student union, Haaretz reported today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office is planning to create "covert units" of students who will fight for the country -- on social media, that is.

It seems the entire internet is extremely pessimistic about the new round of John Kerry-brokered peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. But seeing as most people online don't have a decent grasp on the Israel-Palestine situation, I decided to find out what the real world thinks about the issue. And since I live in Palestine, it was pretty easy to find people who will be directly affected by the outcome (or lack thereof) of the negotiations.