Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, law professor Alan Dershowitz and former CIA director James Woolsey are urging the US to boycott next year's United Nations anti-racism conference which they have dubbed anti-Semitic.
A full-page advert appearing in four newspapers today was signed by 25 people, including religious, academic and legal figures.
They are urging US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to announce that the US will not participate.
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The ad will run in the New York Sun and The Washington Times, as well as the Washington political newspaper Politico and Roll Call, a newspaper designed for the use of members of Congress and others who work there.
The conference, known as Durban II for the South African city that will host it, follows the 2001 World Conference Against Racism. At that meeting, criticism of Israel prompted the US and Israeli delegations to walk out.
A few months later, Israel's then-deputy foreign minister, Michael Melchior, said the conference "hosted the most racist speeches and proposals to be heard in an international forum since World War Two".
He added that "the conference became the mouthpiece for a new and venal form of anti-Semitism".
The ad says that next year's conference "seeks not to combat racism, but to promote and fuel hatred toward Israel and America. ... There is an immediate way to act against growing anti-Semitism around the world - say no to Durban II. Declare that the US will not participate in a dialogue that promotes prejudice".
Canada has already announced that it is boycotting the conference.
"We'll attend any conference that is opposed to racism and intolerance, not those that actually promote racism and intolerance," said Canada's secretary of state for multiculturalism and Canadian identity, Jason Kenney.
United Nations spokesman Brenden Varma said "racism is too important an issue for member states not to work out their differences". He said the conference would provide an opportunity to help stamp out racism.
The Bush administration has already taken a symbolic position opposing the conference. In December, the United States cast the only No vote when the General Assembly passed a two-year UN budget because of objections to funding for the conference that it considered anti-Israel.
The US State Department has said, however, that a decision whether to attend or boycott will be made closer to the time of the conference.
At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February, Senator Norm Coleman, a Republican and frequent critic of the United Nations, asked Ms Rice if the US would say publicly that it would not participate.
"We have not made that statement, but let me assure you, Senator, we have no intention of participating in something like Durban I," Ms Rice responded.
Yesterday, US State Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez said that although no decision had been made, "based on past experience, we think it's very unlikely that the US will be willing to participate".
Last month, the Senate passed a Coleman amendment to block the use of any US money to finance the conference.
"After such a brazen display of racism, one would think that the leadership at the UN would have distanced itself from such a sham," he said, referring to the first conference.
"Instead, the UN has set the stage for a reprise of the same old song and dance."
Anne Bayefsky, who runs a UN watchdog website, EYEontheUN.org, helped organise the ad effort and was among its signatories.
She said the ad was paid for by Lawrence Kadish, a board member at the Hudson Institute think-tank.
Other signatories on the ad include former New York City mayor Ed Koch, former US education secretary William Bennett, political commentator Dick Morris and lawyer Floyd Abrams, who specialises in free speech cases.
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