The official Facebook page of Israel’s embassy to Ireland this morning posted, and then abruptly deleted, a provocative message arguing that “hostile Palestinians” would “lynch” Jesus Christ and his mother, Mary, if they lived in today’s Bethlehem... The Facebook message, which begins “A thought for Christmas,” included an image of Jesus and Mary. It was live for about two hours before being deleted.

Israel’s Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Ministry has opened a Public Diplomacy Department in Arabic. A statement released by the Ministry states that the department “will be responsible for conducting public diplomacy activities for the media and public opinion on a global level in general and among Arab countries and the Middle East in particular.”

With the Arab Spring still unfolding, our mission was to open a real-time window onto the realm of digital diplomacy, showing dialogues between key actors and ranking their influence. Facebook arguably played a greater role in driving the changes in Tunisia and Egypt, but Twitter was the vector through which news flowed to the rest of the world (and back again), and we wanted to harness that.

When you turn diplomatic missions into something resembling Fort Apache, and when diplomatic practice is limited by inordinate restrictions arising from concerns about personal safety, the establishment of vital local connections, and of relationships based on confidence, trust and respect, is next to impossible.

While the world watched the demise of Egypt’s political leadership last year, some Egyptians were tuning online to YouTube clips lampooning the Egyptian state channel’s fumbling version of the events. In early 2011, Bassem Youssef began filming clips in his laundry room to provide comic relief amid a crumbling political situation in his home countr

The State Department wants your opinion. No, not on weighty matters like the Arab Spring/Winter, relations with Russia, the state of NATO, or Chinese free-trade violations. The pressing question of the day is whether it should rename its blog DipNote.

Here's my quandary: If I deliver, as promised, a warts-and-all account of how Agence France Presse's Twitter-based application the e-diplomacy hub came to be, I risk irritating our developer, getting rapped on the knuckles by my CEO, and provoking the good folks at Twitter who, make no mistake, can pull the plug on our ambitious little project, and others like it, with a digital flick of the wrist.

The reaction so far to newly proposed State Department guidelines for staff members tweeting in their official capacity about certain subjects has been universally negative. Under the proposed guidelines, obtained by the Diplopundit blog, there could be up to a two-day review ahead of publishing posts on social media sites.