The incongruities were numerous Tuesday night as the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces held its annual gala at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel here.

The organization raised $24 million in a single evening, which will go to support the programs it runs for current members of the Israeli armed forces, as well as veterans and family members of those killed in the line of duty.

To get inside the Waldorf Astoria for the black-tie affair, guests had to negotiate a scrum of anti-Israel demonstrators. Carrying Palestinian and American flags under a late-winter drizzle, some of the three dozen or so demonstrators marching in a loop held up placards reading “Boycott Israeli Apartheid!” Well-heeled gala guests weaved through the demonstrators until police officers moved the soggy marchers to the side of the hotel entrance.