A campaign to counter a pro-Palestinian ad blitz in the Washington subway system has spawned more poster children as well as a difference of opinion in the Jewish community on how best to shape public opinion regarding Israel.

Los Angeles-based StandWithUs has become the latest organization to post pro-Israel ads in several downtown Metro stations in an effort to discredit subway-platform placards promoting a June 10 rally and march protesting "Israel's illegal military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem." The pro-Palestinian ad blitz is sponsored by the District-based U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.

"Had we not done this, we would be giving these people a free pass and that would have tainted people's minds about the image of Israel," said Roz Rothstein, a spokesperson for StandWithUs.

In placing the ads one depicts armed Palestinian youths and the other a Palestinian toddler holding what appears to be a toy gun StandWithUs has followed the lead of two local Jewish organizations. They are: the local branch of the New York-based advocacy organization Amcha The Coalition for Jewish Concerns, as well as the newly formed group Washington Rabbis for Israel.

On Friday two days before the ads began appearing in some 20 downtown Metro stations a spokesperson for another local Jewish organization questioned whether the counterblitz is an appropriate way of responding to the original campaign that triggered the controversy.

"It's very understandable that people would be concerned about the posters, but we need to avoid a tit-for-tat response," said Ron Halber, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington.

Halber said he based his position largely on recent focus group testing that indicates that the U.S. Campaign poster is confusing and therefore ineffective in shaping public opinion against Israel.

The testing was conducted by The Israel Project, a nonprofit pro-Israel organization with offices in Washington and Jerusalem, which often gauges public opinion.

In this case, the testing involved showing the U.S. Campaign poster to two groups (one consisting entirely of men, the other women) of randomly selected non-Jewish and non-Muslim "opinion elites," meaning college graduates who follow the news, vote regularly and have a yearly household income of at least $70,000, according to Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, founder and president of The Israel Project.

The poster that was tested is dominated by a photograph showing a child, apparently Palestinian, who is dwarfed by a huge Israeli tank with its gun pointed in the child's general direction.

"The people didn't understand the ad," said Mizrahi.

The "vast majority" of those tested, she explained, thought the tank belonged not to Israel, but to the U.S. Army and that the child was not Palestinian, but Iraqi. Not a single focus-group participant, according to Mizrahi, said he or she was motivated to attend the June 10 rally because of the poster.

Halber termed the countercampaign "feel-good, emotionally driven, reactionary activism that is unsophisticated" and "not the way to impact public opinion." Furthermore, he added, there is "no doubt" that it will unintentionally raise the profile of the U.S. Campaign and provide it with free publicity.

One of the leaders of the pro-Israel ad initiative is Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, president of the Washington branch of Amcha and spiritual leader of the District's Ohev Shalom-The National Synagogue. Asked to respond to Halber's assertions, Herzfeld said only: "People who are good people and are passionate about their advocacy for Israel can legitimately disagree about the best approach."

Melanie Maron, executive director of the Washington chapter of the American Jewish Committee, said that although the countercampaign may not be the best use of communal resources, it is not counterproductive. "It is of value because it does respond to concerns in the Jewish community," she added.

David Friedman, director of the Washington, D.C., regional office of the Anti-Defamation League, said the countercampaign is probably beneficial, even if the pro-Palestinian ad is "unlikely to change the hearts and minds" of most commuters and turn them against Israel. He said it was laudable that "at least one organization felt it was appropriate" to challenge a message that some might mistakenly believe reflects the truth about Israel.

Combined, the two pro-Israel ad campaigns cost an estimated $27,000-$30,000. Halber said that rather than reacting to provocation, the Jewish community is best served by a long-term, "pragmatic" approach that seeks to cultivate grassroots support for Israel though public education.

The JCRC uses such an approach, Halber said, and it involves appealing to ethnic and labor groups on behalf of Israel as well as hosting public officials on missions to the Jewish state. An early September JCRC mission to Israel will cost about $30,000, according to Halber.