My friend Rabbi Jason Miller points out that it took just a few days of concentrated outrage from American Jews to roll back the controversial Israeli ad campaign I wrote about here on November 30:

In the end it turns out that Prime Minister Netanyahu decided this PR campaign was, well, bad PR for Israel so he had the Ministry of Immigration Absorption scrap it. Here is the statement coming out of Israel:

“The Ministry of Immigrant Absorption’s campaign clearly did not take into account American Jewish sensibilities, and we regret any offense it caused. The campaign, which aimed to encourage Israelis living abroad to return home, was a laudable one, and it was not meant to cause insult. The campaign was conducted without the knowledge or approval of the prime minister’s office or of the Israeli embassy in Washington. Prime Minister Netanyahu, once made aware of the campaign, ordered the videos immediately removed from YouTube, and he ordered that the billboards be removed as well. The prime minister deeply values the American Jewish community and is committed to deepening ties between it and the State of Israel.”

Miller very astutely juxtaposes this public relations decision with another decision in Israel that’s likely to result in bad PR.

Writing on the Daily Rabbi blog, Rabbi Reuven Hammer of Jerusalem explains that “Two different groups have recently begun to gather lists of stores and employers in Jerusalem who declare that they do not and will not hire Arabs. Their plan is to post and distribute these lists so that people will know which stores to patronize and which to avoid.”

This is clearly a form of racism and it cannot and should not be tolerated in Israel (or anywhere). I hope that Jewish groups like the JFNA work just as hard (or harder) to ensure that these groups cease and desist with their plan. Rabbi Hammer correctly points to a text from the Torah in Exodus that states, “message of the Torah is that “You shall not wrong a stranger [ger] or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

It seems clear that Netanyahu recognizes that American Jews are, in no small way, a part of his constituency … though, like Israeli progressives, not one whose opinion he’s always anxious to hear. The question is whether or not American Jews will ever be as outraged by some Israelis’ racism against Arabs as they clearly are when some Israelis suggest that they’re not Jewish enough. Or, to put this another way, when will American Jews recognize the role that concerted effort on their part could play in resolving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict?

To answer my own question, it’s undeniable that American Jews already do. But this lack of such a concerted effort is easy enough to explain: American Jews can swiftly complain in unison to the Israeli government when they are insulted in unison. But, when it comes to Israel’s dealings with Palestinian Arabs, the American Jewish voice is incredibly fragmented and, thus, unable to push the Netanyahu government to do the right thing in the same way that it was so quickly able to do so in the case of this foolish ad campaign. In other words, the problem is that they can’t agree about the fundamental issue, namely what a successful resolution to the conflict would look like.

So perhaps a better question is the following: What will it take for the American Jewish community to get together on the question of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict so that they can begin to influence the Israeli government to make real strides toward a just and lasting peace?