Chicago, Illinois – As balloons fell from the ceiling of a packed United Center in Chicago, row after row of Democratic Party faithful stood, applauding and shouting with joy.
It was Thursday night, and Kamala Harris had just delivered the closing address at this year’s Democratic National Convention.
The mood was ecstatic: Democrats in the audience were excited, and many credited Harris with reinvigorating the party in the weeks after President Joe Biden ended his faltering reelection bid.
But while jubilant faces stretched as far as the eye could see — and red, white and blue balloons spilled into the aisles — the mood took a markedly different turn outside the stadium.
There, a small group of people dressed in Palestinian keffiyehs stood almost motionless, looking exhausted and disconsolate.
The convention’s “uncommitted” delegates, who had been calling for an arms embargo against Israel amid its devastating war in Gaza, were dealt a blow after Harris said, in no uncertain terms, that she would continue to supply arms to the US ally.
Asma Mohammed, a delegate from Minnesota, summed up how they felt as the convention concluded.
“Balloons are falling on Democrats in our party and bombs are falling on children, families and people I love,” Mohammed told Al Jazeera, tears running down his cheeks. “That’s what I was thinking.”
Another activist rubbed her shoulder to comfort her as they both cried.
Meanwhile, joyous mourners walked by with their “Harris-Walz” signs and American flags.
Two radically different realities emerged from the four-day convention in Chicago. On the one hand, there was happiness and enthusiasm, but for Palestinian rights advocates, the convention brought with it more pain and disappointment.
More than 40,200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza as the United States sends billions of dollars in aid to Israel, which continues to bomb the besieged Palestinian territory.
Many of the activists who came outside the convention to protest were in mourning: After all, Cook County, which includes Chicago, has the largest Palestinian-American community of any county in the United States.
Democratic Party members, including “uncommitted” delegates, had to bring that pain into the festive atmosphere of the convention. They told horrific stories of the carnage, displacement and despair in Gaza, all facilitated by American tax dollars.
But inside the convention center, the party continued uninterrupted, save for a few shouts of “Free Palestine” Thursday night as Harris spoke. Those chants were eventually drowned out by the cheering crowd.
As uncommitted delegates attempted to pressure the Democratic Party from within, protesters outside the convention gathered daily to denounce Harris and Biden for their support of Israel.
The protesters were diverse, energetic and angry. They gathered with Palestinian flags and shouted slogans against the Israeli occupation and the Democratic Party.
“DNC, your hands are red! Over 40,000 dead,” a petite young woman in a hijab shouted into a megaphone on Wednesday. Thousands of protesters echoed her chant.
But some feared the city would descend into chaos as it did in 1968, when a Democratic convention was held amid the civil rights movement and the unpopular Vietnam War.
Back then, the police violently repressed anti-war protesters. This time, there was no repression.
There were some skirmishes, but the protests were peaceful and demonstrators were never allowed to get too close to the convention center, which was protected by a security perimeter with multiple layers of checkpoints.
Still, parallels with 1968 remained fresh in the minds of many protesters, who saw the Gaza war as this generation's Vietnam.
“Just like in 1968, there is nothing to celebrate,” chanted the protesters.
For four days, protesters and non-committed delegates marched, chanted slogans and even begged to be heard and recognized.
But the protesters' voices did not seem to move the party leadership. Harris' campaign and the event organizers ultimately rejected the “uncommitted” movement's request to include a Palestinian speaker during the convention.
And while Harris and Biden have called for a ceasefire in Gaza, Palestinian rights advocates said their statements fell short of expectations. Several activists argued this week that there can be no ceasefire as long as the US continues to supply Israel with weapons to fuel the war.
Al Jazeera spoke to many Harris supporters at the convention; they were either sympathetic or indifferent to the protesters. Convention speakers who mentioned the Palestinians and called for a ceasefire received thunderous cheers from the crowd.
Still, Democrats were eager for the show to go on as they rallied around Harris. For them, Palestine did not seem to be a priority. The war in Gaza and those who raised the issue at the convention seemed like an afterthought, if not a nuisance.
The convention is over, but the stark divide between joy and agony in Chicago could haunt the Democratic Party for years.
Virtually every pro-Palestinian activist and protester Al Jazeera spoke to at the convention had the same message: “We are not leaving.”
