(IsraelNN.com) Danny Ayalon, Israel's Ambassador to the United States, will participate Monday in a Peace Now-sponsored forum on Capitol Hill. In addition, Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (pictured above) is scheduled to deliver the keynote speech at the June annual dinner of the Israel Policy Forum, a group that was formed to support the Labor Party's Oslo II policies.

These two events are part of an intensive campaign aimed at counteracting opposition to the disengagement plan by evangelical Christians and a large number of Jews.

Israeli diplomats in the U.S. are under orders to meet with as many Jewish organizations and synagogues as possible and urge them not to "second-guess the government of Israel or the Israeli citizens," says Aryeh Mekel, Israel's consul-general in New York. "This is the number one priority on the agenda of the consulates," he added.

Consulate sources say that the government has recently begun to understand the impact of American Jewish opposition to Sharon's plan to dismantle 25 Jewish communities in the Gaza region and northern Samaria. Pro-disengagement Jewish leaders also are worried about this camp's strength. "It is necessary to mobilize" supporters of the government plan, said Abe Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League and a prominent supporter of the plan. "It is very important that Israeli officials will be involved in doing that."

Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America and an outspoken critic of Sharon's program, said that American Jews have a right and obligation to oppose Israeli policies they think are damaging. Klein added that the ZOA is launching a newspaper advertising campaign exposing anti-Israeli comments by Palestinian Authority chairman Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas).