Emmanuel and public diplomacy

"The appointment of Rahm Emmanuel as Obama's chief of staff offers an interesting lesson for the future of public diplomacy. Emmanuel was almost certainly chosen because of his relationship with Obama and for his reputation for hard-nosed efficiency in the legislative arena, not for his foreign policy views. But the Arab media instantly and overwhelmingly focused on his Israeli origins and some really unfortunate comments made by his father about Arabs. News spread incredibly fast. Before I had even seen the pick confirmed in the American media, I saw angry denunciations on al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya and from Palestinian sources. Dozens of hostile op-eds have since appeared in Arab newspapers. And I've received a deluge of emails from friends in the Arab world either venting or anxiously asking what it means (cf some comments in the previous thread)."
Abu Aardvark