Although the cadre at the top of the party is generally pious, it has not imposed sharia rule in Turkey, as some secularist Turks have feared, and has not geared its foreign policy toward spreading Islamism. Instead, it has focused on soft power and economic interests.

The public diplomacy between United States and Israel has intensified in recent days regarding the possible military action against Iran to ‘end’ the alleged military dimension of its nuclear program. Senior officials from United States and Israel are visibly at odds regarding the nature of Iran’s nuclear program and mechanisms to manage the issue.

Branding a nation is “putting a human face on a product.” According to Aharoni, this is a process and not something that will occur overnight. “It will take time.” Explaining Brand Israel strategy, Aharoni said that the key to any nation branding is to “find out what the nation in whole is good at and communicate that to relevant audiences.”

There are so many stigmas attached to Israel at the moment. Without making this blog sound at all like a propaganda-fuelled promo piece for the nation, I was delighted to find out that Tel Aviv is nothing like most foreigners expect it to be.

Peres deserves credit for his forward-thinking, but his proposition stands on shaky grounds. If, to borrow that second headline (from The Washington Post), Facebook presents a new extra-governmental route to diplomacy, the governments should stay out of the way and let the people speak. But that isn't how it works in certain parts of the world.

We are facing a young generation that's exposed to a lot of misinformation...We didn't go there to garner support for government policy, but to present a different side of the conflict, and to tell them directly that by calling for boycott of Israel they won't bring hope for peace.

Farb believes that Israel’s survival depends on how it conducts business, in addition to its diplomacy and defense. He said that Israel’s technology, our lifeline, brings people from around the world here to study our technology, or to buy it.

Launched a bit over a year ago, more or less coinciding with the eruption of the Arab Spring, the ministry’s Arabic Facebook page on Thursday reached the milestone of 100,000 fans. The fact that so many people have said they “Like” the page, however, does not mean that all of them really do.