In the wake of the cock-up of sending some Russian-speaking aparatchnik friend of Propaganda Minister Yuli Edelstein to America, here's a good take on the futility of the whole hasbara exercise.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-wouldn-t-need-propag...
What do Israel and Syria have in common? Not much, but both have ministries of hasbara. No such thing exists in the West. No such thing exists in democracies. But in Israel, we have falafel and a minister of hasbara, who is known as the minister of public diplomacy and diaspora affairs. The Israeli president, prime minister, cabinet members and MKs fly all over the world on useless hasbara missions. Israeli diplomats deal with hasbara from dawn to dusk.
But how many times have you seen a foreign diplomat in Israel explaining how right his country is? Who would listen to him? How many times have other countries' ministers been guests here on hasbara missions? What would come out of them? As for us, Richard Goldstone has changed direction, so we'll leverage it using Israel's embassies: The Palestinians are firing Qassams at the south. We'll use the Qassams for hasbara. And yet, how amazing: Never has Israel's image been at such a low point.