Fresh Diplomatic Meat on Tumblr

New cadets have arrived at the Foreign Ministry for their intense 6 month training program  and they plan to blog about it on Tumblr.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry’s 30th cadet training course seems pretty unique. Not because it is comprised by an equal number of men and women or because of its cultural diversity, but because of the fact that many of these people have chosen to dump promising careers in journalism, law, high-tech and finance to join a neglected government agency that as a result suffers from strikes and public campaigns in protest of low pay.

A country brand that is on the rise but has so many issues to resolve cannot afford to recruit un-to-under-qualified personnel but until this  issue between the Treasury and the MFA is resolved, they will have to continue to rely on people’s good will and sense of mission.

I was never a cadet and a few of them might be older than me, but if I were to dispense any advice vis-à-vis this blog it would be:

1. WRITE IN ENGLISH (or else the only people reading this blog would be your families and your supervisors, plus it’s a good opportunity to practice your English writing skills).

2. Use tags that will help people who are interested in diplomacy find you.

In other words, be apart of the conversation beyond your office walls and fulfill this blog’s potential.

Let’s all wish them the best of luck on their challenging journey!

Hamas on Twitter: “You’ve Opened Hell’s Gates on Yourselves”

Hamas is not such a friendly group of people. They may smile for the cameras when naive dogooders first arrive in Gaza or upon the return of their leader’s granddaughter from medical treatment in Israel

(actually they didn’t smile, they frowned because it made their boycott calls seem kinda stupid); but Twitter has had enough of being used as a channel for them to voice direct violent threats and has suspended their
account.

Could this be an opportunity to replace badmouthing with conversation? Is Twitter going to succeed where all the American presidents and special envoys have failed? Yeah, probably not. I’m sure that would make my friend Peter Lerner’s public diplomacy job much easier but I’m afraid that for a second there I drifted into a fantasy, sorry about that.     

The fact is that hostile social media accounts will continue to pop up like mushrooms after the rain. Homophobic, Xenophobic and other Polyphobic groups will continue to spread hate rather than engage in productive dialogue.  Governments and organizations will continue to try to deliver messages according to their agendas. But with all the accounts in the world, they will never reach the impact they desire if they do not step out of their comfort zones and create content worth sharing beyond their natural circles.

See the full New York Time’s report and Twitter thread here

 

The British Embassy in Israel is looking for a Media Assistant

Here’s a great job opportunity in the digital sphere.

Right by the gorgeous beach and great hours that will enable you to actually enjoy it.  

In a nutshell: Assist the Director of Communications in implementing the Embassy’s communications strategy, and maintain primary responsibility for securing high-profile coverage and public exposure of the activities of the Embassy and the UK Israel Tech Hub in the fields of technology and innovation.

Click to view full job description