Antisemitism? No, That's Not The Reason Kamala Harris Rejected Josh Shapiro
Criticism of the Pennsylvania governor's views on Israel isn't antisemitic, plus Harris had a whole host of other reasons to turn him down
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Amid mass enthusiasm over Vice President Kamala Harris' pick of Minnesota Gov. Walz as her running mate, Republicans and other pro-Israel figures have turned to a spurious argument to criticize the Democratic nominee. They disingenuously claim her decision was in fact motivated by antisemitism. Everyone from Nikki Haley and House Speaker Mike Johnson to commentators Erick Erickson and Van Jones hopped on the claim.
Former President Donald Trump, who not long ago hosted vicious antisemite Nick Fuentes for dinner, said Wednesday it was “very insulting to Jewish people.”
The claim is rich at its face for Republican politicians, given their candidate’s own long history of “insulting” Jewish people. More broadly, those suggesting the “far left” conducted a mudslinging campaign against Shapiro due to his faith don’t seem to reconcile how this amorphous “far left” happily backed Jewish presidential candidates like Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein in recent years. Nor do they cite any actual evidence of Shapiro’s progressive critics attacking, highlighting, or even mentioning his Jewish faith.
Above all else, they conveniently and cynically ignore the litany of reasons that Harris, whose husband is Jewish, may have had for seeing Walz as a better fit for her campaign. For one, Harris was reportedly compelled by Walz’s biography and political accomplishments. For another, Shapiro and Walz reportedly had different approaches to the job, with the Minnesotan coming across as more of a team player and the Pennsylvanian as “overly ambitious.”
Besides any personal aspect or perceived compelling case for Walz, Shapiro’s record carried an array of possible concerns.
Shapiro has been in a yearslong fracas with popular reformist Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. He recently signed a GOP-led bill that allows the state to seize jurisdiction from the DA. Concerns also arose over Shapiro’s handling of sexual harassment allegations against one of his top staffers (a Republican) while he served as attorney general. Also as AG, he stood by the city’s initial decision to deem a woman’s death by 20 stab wounds a suicide instead of homicide – which raised eyebrows after it became known he had connections to the family of the woman's fiancé.
Recently, Shapiro called for corporate tax cuts – at odds with democratic messaging. Last year, he upset teacher organizations by supporting a plan that would have used taxpayer funds for private school vouchers.
And then there was concern about alienating voters concerned with Israel’s war on Gaza and worried about Shapiro’s record on Israel (not his Jewish faith). On the one hand, Shapiro has called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “one of the worst leaders of all time.” But as independent writer and contributing editor at Jewish Currents David Klion recently argued, the Pennsylvania governor’s recent steps suggest a stance unique even among his Democratic colleagues who share generically pro-Israel records.
In April, as student protests began erupting across the country against Israel’s war on Gaza, Shapiro compared student protesters to the KKK. He also suggested that a peaceful pro-Palestine encampment at the University of Pennsylvania was threatening student safety. When the university shut down the protest – at his urging – and arrested 33 people in the process, his office called it the “right decision.”
Anti-war and pro-Palestine voters also pointed to his broader record. In 2021, then-Attorney General Shapiro heralded penalizing Ben & Jerry's – founded by two Jewish Americans – under the state's anti-Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions law after the company refused to sell its ice cream in illegal Israeli settlements.
Voters’ concern only heightened further after reporting revealed Shapiro volunteered at an Israeli military base as a young man (in a non-military capacity), and wrote in a 1993 op-ed that Palestinians were “too battle-minded” to come to peace. Asked about the op-ed, Shapiro offered no apology but merely said: "I was 20."
“Remarkable Ability To Evolve”
The bipartisan consensus surrounding Israel has long remained ironclad. Consequently, what’s important now is not just what American politicians have done over the years, but also what they’ve done recently as that consensus crumbles.