As I watched the selection process for Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate play out, I was worried that anti-Israel activists would wise up and realize that the best possible scenario for them would be that she would pick Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro. Luckily, they weren’t that smart.
While the activists lobbied to take out Shapiro because he is Jewish and criticized pro-Hamas protesters, in reality, his selection would have made it a lot easier for Harris to more aggressively pursue anti-Israel policies. As VP, Shapiro wouldn’t be setting policies toward Israel. But he would have provided useful cover for whatever Harris wanted to do. We’d be told that picking Shapiro was her “Sister Souljah moment” to the pro-Hamas leftists. No matter how much hostility she exhibited toward Israel, she would dispatch Shapiro to dutifully spin the policies to Jewish and pro-Israel audiences. She would let pro-Hamas mobs run amok in cities and on college campuses, and Democrats would trot out social-media posts — of the Shapiro family seder, of their Purim costumes, or of a sukkah on the grounds of the vice president’s residence. Pro-Israel Jews would have gotten symbolism while anti-Israel Democrats would have gotten policy victories.
But, instead of going with the popular governor of the most important swing state, Harris caved to the antisemitic Left who scared her into thinking that picking a Jew would be too risky. If elected, Harris would still steer U.S. policy in a more hostile direction against Israel, but without Shapiro as her token Jew, it will be much harder to paper over what she is doing.