Josh Shapiro, ‘Double Agent for Israel’?

Shocking but not surprising is our reaction to the question that Vice President Harris sprang on Governor Josh Shapiro when she was considering making him her running mate during the 2024 election. She asked whether he had ever “been a double agent for Israel” and if he had “ever communicated with an undercover agent of Israel.” It is nigh impossible to imagine any other candidate being interrogated along those lines. That scoop comes from Mr. Shapiro’s new memoir, “Where We Keep the Light.” Ms. Harris eventually went with Governor Tim Walz, whose political career has run aground in the face of a burgeoning fraud scandal in Minnesota that Ms. Harris’s vetting evidently failed to detect. Mr. Shapiro wondered “whether these questions were being posed to just me — the only Jewish guy in the running” or if they were asked of all potential candidates.Mr. Shapiro relates that when he told his questioner, Dana Remus, a Democratic insider, that the line of questioning was offensive, she told him “Well, we have to ask.” To the question of whether Mr. Shapiro had ever parlayed with Mossad, the Pennsylvanian wrote: “If they were undercover, I responded, how the hell would I know?” Fair enough. Mr. Shapiro reckons that the questions “said a lot about some of the people around the VP.”About Ms. Harris herself, she reportedly asked Mr. Shapiro if he would retract his criticism of antisemitic protests at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Shapiro writes that Ms. Harris “seemed to dislike the role” of vice president. He has also accused her of peddling “blatant lies” about their own tête-à-tête. She accused him of contemplating which Keystone State art he would gather in the vice president’s residence, among other supposed faux pas.The import of the Shapiro exchange lies in what it says about the climate at the summit of Democratic Party politics, where antipathy to Israel appears to have become de rigueur. Even an antisemitism envoy in the Biden administration, Aaron Keyak, reckons Mr. Shapiro being asked if he “was a double agent of the world’s only Jewish state is an antisemitic inquiry.” Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt calls those questions “classic antisemitism.”Ms. Harris’s unease with the Jewish state was barely disguised on the campaign trail, as when she vowed “consequences” against Israel for an invasion of Rafah and declared that she had “studied the maps” and knew better than Jerusalem how to wage war. Meanwhile, Rafah was where the Israel Defense Forces found the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar. Mr. Shapiro was treated to widespread vitriol online and an arson attack during Passover.Mr. Shapiro’s treatment in 2024 could serve as a preview for Democratic politics in 2028 and beyond. In July, the co-host of “Pod Save America,” Tommy Vietor, a former Obama spokesman, said in respect of the next presidential campaign that he wanted “to see Democrats at least calling for cutting off military assistance to Israel.” There has been a rush of candidates for the 2026 vote declaring that Israel has committed “genocide.”There has been much ink spilled on the antisemitism rising on the right. The appearance of Tucker Carlson in the Oval Office last week is hardly an encouraging sign on that front. Mr. Shapiro’s account of how Democrats are talking behind closed doors, though, is a reminder that the party is no haven for Jews. A dual loyalty test by Ms. Harris’s camarilla in respect of the second highest office in the land is reason to be grateful that she lost.

Josh Shapiro, ‘Double Agent for Israel’?

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