For a brief, hopeful moment, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro represented something rare in American politics: a pro-Israel Democrat who could speak clearly, confidently, and unapologetically about the moral stakes facing Israel and the West.
Many Jews had hoped he would be a presidential candidate they’d want to vote for—not just because of the symbolic importance and pride that would come with having America’s first Jewish presidential nominee, but because he might be a voice of moral reason against the rising tide of antizionist madness and libels; a smart, tough, unapologetically Jewish candidate built for this moment.
Instead, in his recent appearance on the All-In Podcast, we witnessed a politician promoting one of the most dangerous antizionist falsehoods in circulation today: the “Israel dragged America into war” libel. In doing so, Shapiro gave credence to the bigoted, centuries-old claim that Jews secretly control governments, manipulate wars, and pull strings from the shadows. That lie has fueled expulsions, pogroms, and mass violence long before it was repackaged as a Democratic Party talking point for the antizonist era.
Shapiro, in discussion with the podcast’s hosts, falsely suggested Israel pressured the U.S. into striking Iran, ignoring the Islamist regime’s 47 years of terrorism, the incalculable amount of American blood on its hands, and President Trump’s stated aim of ensuring it never obtains a nuclear weapon.
In essence, Shapiro gave us a verbal version of that racist New York Times cartoon depicting Benjamin Netanyahu as a guide dog wearing a Star of David collar, leading a yarmulke-clad President Trump around on a leash.
“America should never be led around by any other nation,” Shapiro said. “It should always be about America’s interests, our national security interests. We should never, ever be bullied, as maybe President Trump was, by any other world leader.”
This was a 21st-century version of an old, deadly idea: that Jews operate as a hidden hand guiding powerful nations, leading them into wars for their own diabolical ends. For a governor who knows the history of the “dual loyalty” charge better than most, demonizing Israel as a manipulative, malign influence on the U.S. can hardly be seen as a momentary lapse in judgment. Rather, this was Shapiro’s signal of appeasement to the antizionist mob; the same self-styled progressives who made sure Kamala Harris rejected him as a running mate because he was a “Zionist.”
Leaning further into his party’s strategy of wartime defeatism, Shapiro knocked the Iran war’s logic by pointing to shifting rationales from the Trump administration. He argued that swapping “an 80-something-year-old Ayatollah” for a “60-something-year-old Ayatollah” who may be “far more hardline” is hardly a win.
His bottom line was fair criticism: “If you don’t know why you’re going in, you don’t know how the hell to get out.”
But Shapiro, not done bending the knee to antizionist identitarians, also seemed to downplay his Jewishness.
“I don’t view this issue as a Jewish American,” he said, drawing a boundary the anti-Israel left demands. “I view this issue as an American, and I view this issue in a way of trying to understand what is the best thing for America, which to me is having peace and stability in the Middle East.”
In a landscape where pro-Israel Jews are being purged from institutions and social spaces, Shapiro should have showed some spine and spoken up on behalf of those under pressure to disavow their Zionism. He might have framed his beliefs about the Iran war as a moral, ethical approach that grew out of his own Jewish practice. Instead he tacitly acknowledged his Jewishness as a liability, distancing himself from the world’s only Jewish state.
The irony wasn’t lost on Jews distressed by revelations that, during vetting for Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign, Shapiro faced questions about whether he had ever acted as an “agent” for Israel—a racist dual-loyalty libel.
Shapiro told Harris’ vetting team how offensive that line of questioning was. He lost the spot anyway, amid a pressure campaign from antizionists who did not want a pro-Israel Jew, however moderate, anywhere near the ticket.
Shapiro should know better than to try appeasement. He became a target of antizionist mobs after he spoke out against their harassing Jewish college students and Jewish-owned businesses. His home, the governor’s mansion, was set ablaze by an alleged anti-Israel arsonist during Passover last year while he and his family slept inside—a moment that further exposed antizionism as the hate movement it is.
Now, Shapiro is accommodating that movement in the hopes it will benefit his likely 2028 presidential run.
It won’t.
American voters tend to cast ballots for people they see as having core convictions, of being true to their beliefs. Not politicians who wilt when it’s politically expedient.
It is painful to watch Jews on the left like Shapiro scramble to appease a movement that despises them, when no amount of self-flagellation will ever be enough.
Shapiro did at least use the podcast appearance to call out antisemitism in both parties.
“We have got to be in a place where we universally condemn it,” he said. “And I think what you’re seeing from some folks on the right and some folks on the left is they’ll only call it out if it’s said by a political opponent or someone they disagree with. I frankly respect people on the right like Ted Cruz, who have pulled it out within the Republican Party. I’ve tried to call it out when it rears its ugly head in my party.”
The problem is, you cannot credibly warn about antisemitism while reinforcing a libel that has sustained it for centuries.
Doing so only boosts radical elements like the Democratic Socialists of America, the increasingly influential organization that rejects Israel as a Jewish state. Shapiro’s statements on Israel also cede ground to potential Democratic presidential candidates like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who opposes funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.
Jewish American voters see clearly what is happening. The hope that Shapiro might be a worthy source of their pride, a Jewish leader with the backbone to stand up to the wave of antizionist hatred, is all but gone.
In its place, we see a Democrat degrading himself to fit a landscape in which anti-Israel politics are rewarded, and antizionist libels a part of mainstream discourse.
Jewish voters deserve better. And they are taking note.