DEARBORN (AP) — Many of Michigan’s top Democrats, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, took part in a huge pro-Israel rally at a suburban Detroit synagogue days after Hamas’ deadly attack on the country earlier this month, with some of them dancing and joining in chants of “Am Yisrael Chai” — Hebrew for “The people of Israel live.”

None of them attended a rally in nearby Dearborn the next day to show support for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who were being killed or forced from their homes by the Israeli military’s response.

The war between Israel and Hamas has inflamed tensions between Jews and Muslims around the world, including the Detroit area, which is home to several heavily Jewish suburbs and Dearborn, the city with the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the U.S. The strong show of support for Israel by Michigan’s leading Democrats, though, has offended many of their Muslim supporters and could affect how this key bloc votes next fall in the presidential battleground state.

“There is going to be an effort to not support the people who have not supported us. The people that we voted for for such a long time — people that we’ve helped, we’ve donated to and we’ve worked on their campaigns,” said Adam Abusalah, a 22-year-old Palestinian American from Dearborn.

In Dearborn, which borders Detroit, nearly half of the roughly 110,000 residents claim Arab ancestry. Thousands of other Arab Americans live elsewhere in Wayne County, including Hamtramck, which is the country’s first majority-Muslim city and has an all-Muslim city council.

After Donald Trump won Michigan by fewer than 11,000 votes in 2016, Wayne County and its large Muslim communities helped Joe Biden retake the state for the Democrats in 2020 by a roughly 154,000-vote margin. Biden enjoyed a roughly 3-to-1 advantage in Dearborn and 5-1 advantage in Hamtramck, and he won Wayne County by more than 330,000 votes.

Democrats have similarly benefitted from the Detroit area’s heavy support at the state level, regaining full control of the Legislature while already holding the governor’s mansion last year for the first time since 1983.

Ten miles (16 kilometers) north of Dearborn is Southfield, which is home to one of the area’s thriving Jewish communities and where an estimated 2,500 people gathered Oct. 9 for the pro-Israel rally. Among them were a who’s who of Michigan Democrats, including Whitmer, U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, two U.S. House members, the secretary of state and the state attorney general.

Whitmer told the crowd that “we stand with Israel” and that “Israel has a right to defend itself.”

She also acknowledged the Palestinian suffering in an email response the following week, telling The Associated Press, “In Michigan, we have so many families who are feeling the trauma and mourning the loss of Israeli and Palestinian lives. Our strength as a state is our ability to bring people together to get through difficult times.”

Robyn Lederman, a Jewish attorney from West Bloomfield Hills who lived in Israel for eight years, said such shows of support are important for the grieving Jewish community. She said her family learned through social media on Oct. 7 — the day Hamas militants rampaged through southern Israel, killing more than 1,400 people and abducting more than 200 others — that a young Israeli woman her family hosted in 2012 was missing. Soon after, they learned that the woman, 25-year-old Maya Puder, was one of the more than 260 people who were killed while at an outdoor music festival.

“This has brought to the forefront where people stand based on their reaction,” said Lederman. “More people must take a stand that is anti-terror against Israel and Jews.”