Fears of the Democratic National Convention being disrupted and divided over the issue of U.S. support for Israel have turned out to have been largely unfounded.

Marches from pro-Palestinian protesters outside the convention’s security perimeter have been underwhelming sideshows, not the large, sustained demonstrations predicted by organizers. When some delegates near the rear of the United Center arena attempted to disrupt President Joe Biden’s Monday address by unveiling a large banner that read “Stop Arming Israel,” cheering delegates blocked the banner from view and Biden continued to speak uninterrupted. Even the highest-profile critic of U.S. aid to Israel to speak on the convention stage, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, avoided the subject Monday night, mentioning only that Vice President Kamala Harris is “working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bringing hostages home.”

And on Wednesday evening, as the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American citizen and hostage taken by Hamas during the October 7 terrorist attack, began to speak to the convention, the thousands of attendees stood and cheered, chanting, “Bring them home!”

Rather than a repeat of the 1968 Democratic convention held here in this city, when anti-war protesters clashed violently with police in the streets, the split within the party over Israel and the war in Gaza has barely surfaced, leaving supporters of Israel within the Democratic Party feeling confident about their position within the coalition.

“We win elections,” said Rep. Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, about the party’s pro-Israel wing. “The other side can’t win elections. That’s why they’re blocking traffic.”

Sherman was one of more than a dozen elected officials who spoke Wednesday at a midday reception sponsored by the Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI), a group that works to elect pro-Israel Democrats in primaries and general elections. The consistent theme from the slate of speakers was this: Support for Israel is entirely consistent with liberal and progressive values.

The event was something of a celebration for the group, whose PAC had successfully helped topple two sitting Democratic House members in primaries this year, Reps. Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri. The group was also victorious in some open Democratic primaries, including in last month’s nominating contest for a House seat in the Phoenix area. After a mandated automatic recount, the DMFI-backed candidate, Yassamin Ansari, was declared the winner by just 39 votes over Raquel Terán, who had been noncommittal about the extent of her support for military aid to Israel.

The group’s leader, veteran Democratic operative Mark Mellman, said the defeat of what he called “anti-Israel candidates” is a boon to the entire party’s electoral chances.

“The message to candidates around the country is, being pro-Israel is not just wise policy, it’s smart politics,” Mellman told Dispatch Politics.

The speakers talking up their party’s and presidential ticket’s pro-Israel bona fides on Wednesday were diverse in background and position: retiring Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the Jewish chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Gov. Andy Beshear, the governor of Kentucky who touted his creation of an “antisemitism task force”; and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who referred to his city as the “Tel Aviv of America.”

Also on the program was George Latimer, the Democratic nominee for a New York City House seat who, with DMFI’s help, defeated Bowman in the primary earlier this year. The 70-year-old Latimer had run against Bowman, a progressive darling, on the issue of aid to Israel. On Wednesday, Latimer told Dispatch Politics that he doesn’t believe that “opposition to Israel is a progressive value.”

That theme—that support for Israel is entirely consistent with liberalism and progressivism—was a constant refrain at the DMFI event.

Rep. Mike Levin of California called himself a “proud pro-Israel progressive.” Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota talked about a visit to Israel she made with her wife four years ago. “It was in that moment when we realized this is the only place in the entire Middle East where we can take our own family,” she said, referring to Israel’s openness to LGBT people.

And Rep. Shontel Brown of Ohio, a black congresswoman from Cleveland, likened her experience growing up in the inner city to the dangerous conditions Israelis live under, which she said she saw first-hand during a visit to the Jewish state. “Being vulnerable, hearing gunshots is not an unfamiliar thing to me,” Brown said. “I never felt more vulnerable standing within a few feet of bomb shelters. Knowing how vulnerable the state of Israel was made me recognize how important it is for us to have a solid friendship and to always, always support Israel’s right to defend itself.”

Despite the positive attitude at the DMFI event, there was still a sense that the pro-Israel wing’s dominance in their party remains tenuous.

“There’s no question that my colleagues … stand with Israel,” Rep. Brad Schneider of Illinois told attendees. “But there is no certainty whatsoever that that majority will be there in the next generation unless we work together and ensure the Democratic majority for Israel.”

Schneider later told Dispatch Politics that Democrats like him do not want to see Republicans alone claim to be the pro-Israel party. Late on Wednesday night, for instance, Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social account an attack on the “highly overrated Jewish Governor of the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro” and claimed Harris “hates Israel.”

“You’ve had a concerted effort to make Israel a partisan issue—a wedge issue, and that’s the Republican side. And they’ve been trying to do that for a generation,” Schneider said. “I would prefer [that it be a] nonpartisan, bipartisan issue.”

And that, Mellman said, is why he believes Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, should articulate their support for Israel on the trail. 

“I think the pro-Israel community is far larger than the anti-Israel community, and it’s a community that needs some reassurance,” Mellman told Dispatch Politics. “I think it’s important for the campaign to provide that reassurance in the form of verbal commitments during the campaign.”