Josh Shapiro, Kamala Harris' potential vice president pick, downplays Israeli army links

On Friday, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a leading contender to be Kamala Harris' running mate, attempted to downplay his involvement in a recently resurfaced college op-ed, in which he said he was a former Israeli army volunteer and suggested that Palestinians are too focused on conflict to pursue peace with Israel.

The Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair-Philadelphia) has called on Shapiro to apologise for his remarks.

In the 1993 opinion piece, Shapiro claimed that peace would "never come" to the Middle East and argued that Palestinians were unable to establish their own state, labelling them as "too battle-minded".

The executive director of Cair-Philadelphia, Ahmet Tekelioglu, expressed concern over Shapiro's comments, stating: "We are deeply disturbed by the racist, anti-Palestinian views that Governor Shapiro expressed in this article. We are also troubled by his failure to clearly apologise for those hateful comments, especially given how quickly and harshly he has targeted college students protesting the Gaza genocide for their speech."

Shapiro also sought to distance himself from the decades-old claim that he "volunteered" with the Israeli military after it resurfaced on Friday.

The Pennsylvania governor wrote a newspaper column in 1993 mentioning that he had volunteered with the Israeli army. When asked about the extent of his involvement, Shapiro's press secretary clarified that "at no time was he engaged in any military activities".