Democrats Have a Josh Shapiro Problem

Among the possible reasons Ms. Harris chose Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota over Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, according to a report in The Times, was that Mr. Shapiro’s selection could “inflame the left.” And chief among the reasons given for this potential inferno was Mr. Shapiro’s allegedly extreme pro-Israel views. An article in The New Republic called Mr. Shapiro “the one vice-presidential pick who could ruin Democratic unity” and claimed that he “stands out among the current field of potential running mates as being egregiously bad on Palestine.” A writer for Jacobin, a socialist magazine, labeled him a “genocide apologist.” A group of far-left congressional staffers and the Democratic Socialists of America teamed up to produce an open letter demanding that Ms. Harris “say no to Genocide Josh Shapiro for vice president.”

The examples marshaled as evidence of Mr. Shapiro’s “egregiously bad” views on the Middle East were specious. Mr. Shapiro, it was alleged, likened all pro-Palestinian demonstrators to the Ku Klux Klan. In actuality, he singled out extremists who called for Israel’s destruction and threatened violence, and he has stated clearly that “we should be universal in our condemnation of antisemitism, Islamophobia and all forms of hate.” More absurd was the digging up of a column Mr. Shapiro wrote for his college newspaper over 30 years ago arguing that the Palestinians were “too battle-minded” to co-exist with Israel. Mr. Shapiro, who has long supported a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, appropriately brushed off the column as something he “wrote when I was 20.”

In their efforts to vilify Mr. Shapiro as a lap dog of Israel’s right-wing government, his antagonists conveniently ignored his harsh criticism of the country’s right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Shapiro has called Mr. Netanyahu a “terrible leader” who “has driven Israel to an extreme,” and “one of the worst leaders of all time” — comments that went well beyond anything that Ms. Harris, Mr. Walz or any of the other vice-presidential contenders had said. These were extremely disparaging, never mind undiplomatic, words to describe the democratically elected leader of an American ally. But they didn’t earn Mr. Shapiro any purchase with the activists branding him “Genocide Josh,” an inflammatory term that they conspicuously avoided using against any other vice-presidential contender, let alone Ms. Harris herself, who is serving in the administration of the man these same activists call “Genocide Joe.”

Mr. Shapiro is a thoroughly mainstream liberal Zionist whose views on the Middle East were virtually indistinguishable from those of his vice-presidential rivals, so the effort to single him out — Mr. Shapiro was the only vice-presidential contender to be targeted by an open and organized campaign against his selection — had to have been motivated by something else. What is it about Mr. Shapiro that led people to argue his placement on the ticket would “ruin” party unity?

It’s hard to escape the impression that some of Mr. Shapiro’s left-wing detractors were riled because he is Jewish. If being pro-Israel was the problem, they would have protested all of the vice-presidential contenders. Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, like Mr. Shapiro, supported the use of police to dismantle campus anti-Israel encampments. Furthermore, he attended Mr. Netanyahu’s speech to Congress last month and applauded. Activists loudly criticized Mr. Shapiro for enforcing a Pennsylvania statute prohibiting the state from doing business with companies that boycott Israel, but they didn’t seem to notice that Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina signed a similar measure into law. Nor did they attack Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky when he was asked for his view of the conflict and replied, “Israel has a strong ally in the United States,” and “When you have disagreements with a strong ally, I think you have them privately, and I don’t think you can litigate foreign policy through the press.”