Did Josh Shapiro’s Record on Israel Torpedo His Veep Chances?

Before Kamala Harris announced the selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was rumored to be a top contender. But according to media reports, Shapiro just couldn’t pass the vetting process. There was a sexual harassment scandal involving one of his aides, his antipathy to teachers’ unions and support for school vouchers and the case of a woman who was stabbed 20 times that he allegedly helped cover up for a well-connected family as Pennsylvania attorney general. 

Then there was a more diffuse, nagging concern: His long-standing support for the most extreme policies of Israel. While it’s unknown if Shapiro’s views on Israel/Palestine cost him the nomination — according to NBC reporter Yamiche Alcindor, the danger that the issue would elevate intraparty tensions was “discussed” but not determinative — it is significant that it was a topic of conversation at all. That the nominee would slow down a decision to seriously consider whether a candidate was too hawkish on Israel is a new development. It shows how far Palestine has come in institutional media and Democratic politics, where previously being too pro-Israel was considered either neutral or good, if not a requirement.

The change must have come as a surprise for Shapiro. Nothing in his past statements or writing was particularly new or different, and fervid support for Israel has long been a bipartisan sport. President Joe Biden, who has backed the country to the hilt during its nine-month long indiscriminate massacres of Palestinians in Gaza since Oct. 7, may illustrate an extreme version of that support, but his politics aren’t fundamentally different from the mainstream of the party.

But the ongoing Gaza genocide has fractured the Democratic Party. Most importantly in a tight election year, it has sparked a movement to express frustration with the president by voting “uncommitted” in Democratic primaries where the incumbent is unopposed. Protests at the Democratic National Committee convention against Israel’s onslaught — still planned — are sure to generate press coverage and make noise. Israel and Gaza are, in short, among the most fraught issues affecting party unity, to the point of threatening the ticket’s chances in an election that runs through Michigan. Whatever the balance of factors, Harris had little to gain from having to constantly defend Shapiro’s praise for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his mourning of the war criminal and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2014, and his bragging about volunteering for the Israel Defense Forces. He has also likened Palestine liberation protesters to the Ku Klux Klan. 

The media’s role also suggests a shift has taken place. In a public press conference on Aug. 2, a reporter challenged Shapiro over comments he had made in college dismissing Palestinians as “battle-minded.” The governor, then still a hopeful for the vice presidential nod, responded with a curt, “I was 20,” and called for a two-state solution. Earlier, a spokesman for Shapiro told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Shapiro had changed his opinion on Palestinian statehood after meeting with various stakeholders in Pennsylvania. “As with many issues, his views on the Middle East have evolved into the position he holds today,” the spokesperson said. 

That he even had to defend and explain himself shows the conversation on Palestine in the Democratic Party has moved. So, too, does the way that ultimate selection of Walz was spun after the fact. Although Shapiro was not chosen for a range of factors — the aforementioned scandals, his naked ambition, bad chemistry with Harris and the opposition of Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa. — it is significant that the story of his rejection was backdoor rewritten by some centrists like Matt Yglesias. After demonstrators spoke out at a Harris-Walz rally in Detroit on Aug. 7, Yglesias took to X to complain that Palestine advocates weren’t playing fair. 

“This is not per se a knock on Tim Walz but it’s striking that the pro-Palestine movement could not stick to the terms of the ‘give us Tim Walz or we will dedicate 100% of our effort to electing Trump even though we concede he is worse on our key issue’ deal for one day,” Yglesias complained.

By attempting to portray Shapiro’s opponents as bigots, these right-wing Democratic pundits set the terms of the debate such that a rejection of Shapiro could only be seen as evidence of Harris caving to the left on Palestine. And by doing so, they unwittingly handed a win to the left faction of the party on an issue the mainstream desperately wants to go away. 

None of this promises a substantive shift in policy from a Harris administration. Although the vice president has lately begun to center Palestinian suffering in her public remarks — a clear contrast with the callous Biden — she has yet to discuss or promise any meaningful deviations from the current policy. Advocates will no doubt be keeping a close eye on the campaign’s foreign policy positions page, once they have one, and are ready to fight to make sure any promises or symbolic gestures made on the campaign trail are delivered on in full after inauguration.