A prime-time show called The Ambassador, which had its debut last night, is to seek out a winner from 14 contestants whose all-expenses-paid prize will be to burnish the country’s image abroad.

Modelled on The Apprentice, the American show where the property tycoon Donald Trump ruthlessly eliminates players until he chooses one to be his management assistant, the Israeli contestants are to be set a series of tasks to show off their advocacy skills. The victor from the seven men and seven women, chosen from thousands of applicants, will emerge at the end of twelve weekly shows filmed around the world. He or she will be given a job for a year working for Israel at Heart, a New York-based Jewish group, which enhances the perception of Israel overseas.

“Israel has a serious image problem,” Joey Low, the Jewish-American businessman who founded Israel at Heart, said. “Some of the effort to address that is not done well. Many Israelis throw up their hands and say: ‘We’ve lost the battle. People hate us.’ But that’s cynical defeatism. Through this show, we can demonstrate it’s not too late to change things.”

The English-speaking contestants are university graduates aged between 25 and 30. Among them are lawyers, accountants, several devout Jews, one woman from the Jewish settlement Kedumim and an Ethiopian Jewish woman who moved to Israel. In the coming weeks, two teams, men against women, will do battle in a series of tasks filmed in London, Paris, Washington and Jerusalem. Each week the losers will appear before a judges’ panel, which will eliminate the team’s weakest link.

The first episode of The Ambassador, filmed in the Cambridge Union, aired last night, with the contestants debating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before an audience of British students.

The audience’s questions showed that most believed that Israel was in the wrong in the conflict, provoking Ofra Bin Nun, of the women’s team, to say that Israeli policies were defensive, aimed only at saving lives. Nor had Israel seized Palestinian land. “Let me make it very clear Israel has not taken anything from anyone,” she said.

Her comment drew loud groans from the audience, which sent the women’s team packing back to Israel, where Ms Bin Nun was the first contestant to be binned by the judges.

Other tasks that the groups will have to perform over the next three months include delivering persuasive speeches to politicians and showing their ability in the advertising arena to promote Israel abroad.

“This is not a regular reality TV show,” Gadi Veinrib, one of The Ambassador’s producers, said. “It’s not a girl choosing from 14 bachelors. It’s not about chasing money. It’s to do with what’s in Israelis’ hearts.

“This is a unique show that could only be done in Israel because most countries aren’t so preoccupied with the way they’re portrayed.”

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