The article published below is an abstract of: Gilboa, Eytan. Public Diplomacy: The Missing Component in Israel’s Foreign Policy. Israel Affairs, 12 (October 2006), pp. 715-747
For copies please contact Professor Eytan Gilboa at egilboa@mail.biu.ac.il

In the information age, national reputation has become a critical asset, and attraction and persuasion via mass communication have become the principal instruments of foreign relations. In the recent Palestinian-Israeli warfare, the Palestinians have decisively won the critical media and information front. This work explores the reasons for Israel’s failures via new tools for analysis including “the new public diplomacy,” “soft power” and “world standing index.” It systematically examines Israel’s place in the world as seen in debates about its right to exist, in the ‘war of words’ and at the UN. It presents data and analysis on media coverage of Israel in the West and major trends in public opinion. The last section analyzes Israel’s approach to public diplomacy, the failures of its past approach, causes for these failures, and a few possible remedies. The work reveals a huge gap between the threat to Israel’s national security and well being due to its poor reputation abroad and the meager public diplomacy program designed to address this threat.

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Eytan Gilboa is a professor of international communication and senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University. He is also a visiting professor at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California, and a member of the Executive Committee, International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom (IAB). egilboa@mail.biu.ac.il .