Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro
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The Pennsylvania governor, who is Jewish, has drawn more attention on the issue than other potential vice presidential candidates.
This is despite the fact that Shapiro largely agrees with other Democrats on the baseline of U.S. support for Israel. Like others, he affirmed his support for the Jewish state after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, while making clear that he supports a two-state solution to the conflict.
Shapiro also called Benjamin Netanyahu a “terrible leader,” telling NBC News that the Israeli prime minister had “pushed Israel to an extreme that has been bad for Israel and bad for stability in the Middle East.”
Where Shapiro stands out from other contenders is in his virulent response to some aspects of the pro-Palestinian protests, including comparing some demonstrators to members of the white supremacist group Ku Klux Klan in an April interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper.
At the time, pro-Palestinian protests had broken out on college campuses across the country, sometimes leading to unrest and disruption. At some universities, classes were moved online because of administrators’ concerns about the safety of Jewish students.
“We have to ask ourselves whether or not we would tolerate this kind of thing if people dressed as Ku Klux Klansmen or wearing Ku Klux Klan regalia were making comments about African-Americans in our communities,” Shapiro said. “I think we have to be careful that we don’t set a double standard on our campuses.”
Shapiro also sharply criticized Liz Magill, the former president of the University of Pennsylvania, after she gave stilted, legalistic answers to questions from House Republicans about whether calls for genocide violated the university’s code of conduct.
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