When President Barack Obama announced his trip to Israel, there was widespread speculation for the motivations. I thought it was a grab-bag of reasons, including for domestic political purposes, to connect (finally) with the Jewish-Israeli public, to improve personal relations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and to talk about Iran and Syria.

After nearly three years of political tension, diplomatic maneuvering, and back-channel negotiations, Israel has formally apologized to Turkey for the killing of nine Turkish citizens onboard the ship Mavi Marmara in 2010. On behalf of the Turkish people, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accepted Israel’s apology.

Israel is making the most of President Obama's visit to get the word out about the challenges the country faces, and the “unbreakable relationship” between Israel and U.S., says Danny Seman, Deputy Director in the General Ministry of Public Diplomacy, in charge of social media for the group. Social networks are the new global “water cooler” where people exchange ideas and opinions, and it's important for Israel to make its voice heard in these forums, in order to ensure that people know what this country is facing."

A delegation of university students, comprised of members of the Jewish, Arab and Druse communities, has just returned to Israel after a week-long outreach tour of Canadian universities, timed to conclude just before the start of Israel Apartheid Week on North American campuses. The trip, organized by WordSwap, a nonpartisan public diplomacy project, brought the students specifically to Canada.

In the wake of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's apology Friday to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the deaths of nine Turkish activists aboard the 2010 Gaza flotilla, the two countries have set the wheels in motion to pay compensation over the deaths, with Israel set to pay out as much as tens of millions of dollars, according to sources in Turkey.

Refaeli is the new face of an ad by the Israeli Foreign Ministry that kicks off a public relations campaign trumpeting Israel's cutting-edge technologies. But the Israel Defense Forces is not happy about it. A spokesperson for the Defense Forces says in a statement, "The choice of a representative who did not serve in the military as an official presenter on behalf of Israel, conveys the message that we ignore and forgive evasion of enlistment, and encourages identification, among youths of both sexes, with the success of those who did not enlist."

As the beautiful face of a nation, supermodel Bar Refaeli has few rivals. So Israel’s foreign ministry thought it was on to a winner this month when it picked the blond, blue-green-eyed, willowy, tall and curvy Refaeli to lead a public relations campaign highlighting Israel’s world-beating technologies. Instead, it sparked a bitter controversy about just who is a 'real' Israeli. The Israeli army attacked the proposal, saying that the 27-year-old Sports Illustrated cover girl was a draft dodger and a bad example to Israel’s youth.

President Barack Obama’s relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has never been warm. So while visiting Israel, Obama did not limit himself to the standard rhetorical niceties. He went over the heads of politicians and appealed directly to the Israeli public, especially the young, to make his case for a more flexible approach to negotiating with Palestinians.