A surprise awaits beyond a black door adorned with a silver lotus flower at the end of a tangle of alleyways in Gaza's chaotic Old City. Through it and behind imposing stone walls sits a small, Levantine-style palace, some 430 years old and recently painstakingly restored. It is among the rare vestiges of Gaza City's architectural heritage, battered by war, time, population pressure and simple indifference.

"We are ready to expand and strengthen contacts with Muslim and non-governmental organizations in the region along the line of 'people's diplomacy', we are ready to help the peoples of the region to overcome armed conflicts by sharing the experience of Russian Muslims..."

The secret to successful public diplomacy for a state may sound like a surreptitious potion whose recipe lies with the magicians. However, it is the art of devising and executing strategies, just in the accurate proportion, to transform the way the local and international public perceives a certain state. So, where does this recipe come from? It comes from the human mind.

Omar Souleyman, a 49-year-old farmer-turned-wedding-singer from north-eastern Syria and a father of 9, is an unlikely electronic music star. This month he drew big crowds to KOKO, one of London’s most iconic music venues. Donning the jalabiya andkeffiyeh, traditional Arab garments, along with his signature aviator shades, he performed to a packed out venue full of white middle-class youth. 

The loss of Palmyra, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980, was one of ISIS’s biggest setbacks since the group declared itself a caliphate in 2014. […] [Maamoun] Abdulkarim said he and other historians and archaeologists would travel to Palmyra to more deeply assess the damage, and to plan how they’ll restore the ancient ruins and sites. 

Kuwait is one of the masters of soft power in the Middle East. As I was having dinner with two Emiratis, two non- Kuwaiti Arabs were having dinner at a table beside ours; the two non-Kuwaiti Arabs were stuck to one phone watching the second episode of “Swar Shuaib,” Kuwait’s Shuaib Rashed’s popular talk show. 

The prominent network has been seen as a foreign policy tool during Qatar’s attempts to play an influential role in the region. But many say Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has pursued a quieter approach to diplomacy since becoming Emir.