Israel, Gaza and Josh Shapiro: What we’re watching for during the Democratic National Convention

By Ron Kampeas

(JTA) — When Democrats descend on Chicago tonight (Aug. 19) to nominate Kamala Harris, the party will be unified on much, but riven by a major issue that has also preoccupied American Jews for 10 months: Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.

Outside the convention, pro-Palestinian protesters plan to turn out in the tens of thousands for marches and protests. On sidelines of the convention, pro-Israel groups will feature prominently, and stars like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro will likely take the main stage. Harris’ Jewish husband, Doug Emhoff, is also expected to take a primetime turn.

The GOP convention by contrast was spectacularly unified, coming as it did at the peak of Donald Trump’s popularity, shortly after he survived an assassination attempt. But within days of Trump accepting the nomination, President Joe Biden dropped out, endorsing Harris, and she and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have risen steadily in the polls since.

Now, Trump is reportedly in a funk, while the Harris team seems to be enjoying its momentum. How long Harris’ joy lasts depends in part on how next week’s convention goes — and that could depend a great deal on how Harris and her party address Israel and the war.

The Democratic convention will run tonight through Thursday in Chicago, with marquee speakers — including Harris, Walz and former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton — speaking in the evening. Here’s what we’re watching.

Will protests stoke unrest?

Chicago will see public actions both in support of and against Israel next week, and for the city, a front-of-mind concern is preventing a repeat of the 1968 anti-Vietnam War protests and violent police response that turned that year’s Democratic convention into a nexus of chaos, led to a controversial trial and saw images of bloodshed spread across global news broadcasts.

The 1968 riots are widely seen as having contributed to the defeat of the Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey, by Richard Nixon.

Pro-Palestinian protesters say tens of thousands of people will turn out at the convention, with major rallies on the first and last days of the event, Monday and Thursday, and some are hoping for a 1968 repeat. “I think people really need to see it as the equivalent of the 1968 DNC in Chicago,” Deanna Othman, who for months has been trying to extricate family from Gaza, told The Washington Post.

There are a lot of parallels. This year, the convention will be in Chicago again. And this year, demonstrators will again mass to protest the nominee’s support for a war abroad. This year, as in 1968, the nominee will be the sitting vice president, after the president withdrew from the campaign.

But this year, Chicago officials are projecting confidence. The police are placing restrictions on the demonstrations, such as banning sound equipment or stages for speakers, that organizers call onerous.

“The difference between 1968 and now is that the department has evolved,” Police Superintendent Larry Snelling told CNN this week. “The city has evolved. And during that evolution, we’d gotten a lot better at dealing with these types of large-scale events.”

Whether or not they echo the 1968 protests, the pro-Palestinian demonstrations planned for the DNC are a sharp contrast to those that took place during the Republican convention. A demonstration there drew just hundreds for a single morning of protest that covered a broad range of issues, including the Gaza war, despite Trump making clear that he also supports Israel’s war effort and was seen as antagonistic to the Palestinians while in office.

​Jim Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute and a longtime Democratic Party operative, said progressive protesters are showing up in large numbers at the Democratic convention because they feel betrayed by the Democratic administration.

“Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza has become central to the agenda of progressives in the Democratic Party,” he said in his most recent weekly newsletter. “Polls show that majorities of Democrats are opposed to Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, want a ceasefire and a conditioning of U.S. aid to Israel, and support justice and rights for Palestinians.”

The pro-Israel side is dealing with a more fundamental challenge to its protest plans. The Israeli American Council has for months been seeking a permit to rally for the hostages taken captive by Hamas on Oct. 7, when the terror group launched the war.

The city has so far denied the IAC permission to rally near the convention center, though it has offered the group a 45-minute slot at a speaker’s platform for groups that don’t have rally permits.

“Our rallies are patriotic, pro-American and pro Israel,” Elan Carr, the IAC CEO, said in an interview. “That’s also a view, it happens to be the majority view, but that’s not the point, but that side of the American tapestry ought to be very well represented.”

The IAC will have a public display on behalf of its cause. It’s setting up a “Hostage Square” on private property in Chicago that will have public art installations raising awareness of the hostages’ plight.

Will Israel and Gaza be discussed on the main stage?

When substantial minorities of voters in Democratic primaries across the country selected “uncommitted” to protest Biden’s support for the war, it prompted the question of whether they would get representation on the convention floor.

The answer is yes: The movement has secured 30 or so delegates out of the close to 4,000 who will be attending, and they may be vocal, particularly on Monday, when delegates are expected to approve a party platform that hews broadly to traditional pro-Israel language.

A party insider told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that there is no means to change the platform, but vocal opposition from the floor could create an uncomfortable vibe heading into the convention. It wouldn’t be the first time: A reference to Jerusalem as Israel’s capital drew boos at the 2012 convention.

Otherwise, pro-Palestinian activists say they have been cut out of the convention — although that is not yet clear, as the list of speakers and the exact schedule has yet to be published.

“What will not be discussed are: the genocide that has been unfolding in Gaza, the continued erosion of Palestinian rights in all the Occupied Territories, and the role the United States continues to play in supporting Israel’s unconscionable violations of international law and US human rights legislation,” said Zogby, whose group is joining with Rev. Jesse Jackson’s RainbowPUSH to mount events that address those issues.

On the pro-Israel side, families of hostages told JTA they hope to secure a prime-time moment equivalent to the spot that a hostage family received at the Republican convention, where they were cheered and lauded as heroes.

Uncommitted, in the meantime, has been pressing the convention to bring on stage medical officials who have been treating the tens of thousands of dead and injured in Gaza.

There are other open questions: One speaker at the Republican convention, Shabbos Kestenbaum, addressed the unrest on U.S. campuses over the last year, sharing his perspective as a Jewish student who felt besieged. Do Democrats bring students on the stage, whether pro-Palestinian or pro-Israel?

What do the most prominent speakers say?

Biden is scheduled to headline tonight and Harris the final night. Thursday. If either — or both — mention the war, Jewish organizations will closely scrutinize the differences, as will pro-Palestinian activists. Harris has said that she and Biden agree on the war, but she has been more willing to criticize Israel publicly.

One Jewish moment is expected as spouses traditionally introduce nominees. Emhoff will almost certainly have a turn on the stage, and may well mention his Jewish identity. He has chaired the Biden administration’s task force to combat antisemitism and has said he was surprised how his status as the first Jewish spouse of a vice president has resonated with the Jewish community. He’s embraced the position. (Also, expect chatter about Emhoff’s role, if it is prominent, and a contrast with Melania Trump, who barely appeared at the RNC and did not speak.)

Another likely speaker who will be closely watched is Shapiro, who Harris came close to choosing as a running mate. There was buzz at the time that Harris caved to a pressure campaign not to pick Shapiro, which opponents accused of being antisemitic. The campaign and Shapiro have steadfastly denied that his Judaism played any role in the decision.

Shapiro has pledged to do the hard work to get Harris elected, and one sign he is serious is that he is starring at the Florida delegation’s breakfast on Monday morning, which is traditionally Jewish-delegate-heavy.

Where will all the Jewish events be held?

There’s been a ubiquitous phrase on invitations for sideline events organized by Jewish groups: “Location provided upon RSVP.”

Jewish events are abundant at the convention, as they have always been. Pro-Israel groups are inviting favored lawmakers to luncheons and parties. But unlike in previous years, few of these are open to the press, and even when they are, they are being kept under wraps until the last minute.

That’s in keeping with a broad trend in which Jewish groups try to prevent protests and interruptions to events with real or perceived Israel ties that have taken place around the country.

J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami said his group, a liberal Jewish Middle East policy and lobby organization, has in the past hosted get-togethers where lawmakers and other officials who disagree on Israel will engage in spirited and civil discussion. But that won’t happen this time, at least not in public, in order not to feed the protesters’ agenda.

“It’s really that you don’t want to turn these events into the story of the convention and a few disruptors,” he said Friday in a conference call with reporters. “There’s a reason why it makes sense to have those conversations quietly in rooms that are not having a glare of the spotlight and open necessarily to public protest.”

Will news in the Middle East shake Chicago?

Two developments having nothing, at least directly, to do with the convention could upend it: Iran’s long threatened strike on Israel; and the prospect of a ceasefire. A top administration official told reporters that after the talks concluded in Qatar on Friday, negotiators believed they were in the “end game,” and that they could finalize a deal in Cairo “before the end of next week.”

That’s just when Harris is set to deliver her speech officially accepting the party’s nomination.