Josh Shapiro, Kamala Harris drop the gloves

Because I believe that anti-Semite (and racist) are among the worst things you can call someone, I won’t use them unless I am 100% sure.

Part of this, no doubt, is because as a journalist I have to be sure of facts before I lay them on the table.

I try to keep an open mind, and try to be led by reason rather than emotion. I also view anything I read online with suspicion.

So when I read on Facebook on Monday that presidential candidate Kamala Harris asked potential running mate Josh Shapiro if he were an agent for Israel, I asked the person who posted that if he could verify that with a credible source.

I kept an open mind, but a suspicious one.

As it turned out, no, Harris did not ask that question, but one of her vetting deputies did, and even worse, according to reporting in the Philadelphia Inquirer on a soon-to-be-released Shapiro memoir.  

Following is a brief summary of what the Inquirer says Shapiro said, noting that the newspaper unsuccessfully attempted to reach some of those mentioned for comment.

“Have you ever been an agent of the Israeli government?,” he was asked by Dana Remus, co-leading the vetting.

“Had I been a double agent for Israel?”

Of course not. Shapiro replied the question was offensive.

If there were any basis whatsoever for such a question, it might have come from Shapiro’s life-long pro-Israel stance, and his criticism of some pro-Palestinian protests, particularly those that carried a tinge of anti-Semitism.

I may be too charitable in allowing for such questions to be asked at all, because it embraces a frequent trope that American Jews have “divided loyalties” between America and Israel.

I don’t recall Irish or Polish or Italian or Nigerian or Anglo Americans being questioned about divided loyalties.

Shapiro wondered if other candidates were being asked those questions, or just Jews.

“Remus was just doing her job. I get it,” Shapiro wrote.

“But the fact that she asked, or was told to ask that question by someone else, said a lot about some of the people around the VP.”

Do I think Harris is an anti-Semite?

That she is married to a Jew, and celebrates Jewish holidays with her blended family, answers that question to my satisfaction.

I say that as someone who is no big fan of hers.

And neither is Shapiro now, based on his views that Harris wanted a eunuch for her vice president, rather than a partner. (Personally, I believe Shapiro never wanted to be No. 2, especially to a Hard Left Democrat.)

And Harris, in her memoir, took some swipes at Shapiro.

Even before his official interview, Harris said Shapiro asked about the number of bedrooms in the vice president residence, and wondered about furnishings.

Shapiro seemed "unable to settle for a role as number two,” and Harris  claimed he "mused that he would want to be in the room for every decision.”

To which Shapiro replied, “Bullshit.”

Well, I guess they won’t be celebrating Passover together. And they might be seeking the same office.

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Back to the issue of anti-Semitism.

The question of divided loyalties resonated with me, because I recall something similar being raised when Roman Catholic John F. Kennedy sought the presidency.

The question was this: Would he obey the Constitution or the Pope? And the people raising that question were not trying to be helpful.

Kennedy grabbed the bull by the horns in a September 1960 speech to Protestant ministers in Houston.

He said that he was not "the Catholic candidate for president," but the "Democratic Party's candidate for president who happens also to be a Catholic."  

That pretty much ended the “religious question,” and a Roman Catholic was elected for the first time.

The U.S. has never had a Jewish President, and I’m not saying we should have one — unless that person is being denied because he or she is Jewish. That is unAmerican.

Shapiro is pro Israel, as are the vast majority of American Jews. 

Shapiro dislikes conservative Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, as is true for the bulk of American Jews, who are liberal. 

Opposing the government of Israel is not anti-Semitism, while opposing the nationhood of Israel is. There is a line separating the two. Sometimes the line is thin, and sometimes it disappears.

Opposing the government of Israel in one thing. Opposing Israel’s right to exist is another thing entirely.

That is where “from the river to the sea” comes in.

That line posits a Palestinian state without Israel, and that is ethnic cleansing, genocidal and anti-Semitic. It calls for the dissolution of the Jewish state, the only Jewish state, among 57 Muslims states, more than 120 Christian-majority states, 7 Buddhist, and 2 Hindu-majority nations. Demands for an end to Israel are attacks on Jewish identity.

These attacks come from the fringes of both Left and Right. The Left wrongly sees Israel as colonial and apartheid. It is neither. The Right sees Israel as an usurper of American aid (almost all of which is spent in the U.S. on arms).

The Jewish people are a very old people, they have achieved much and suffered much. I have discussed the roots of anti-Semitism before. You can read it here

For decades, it had been diminishing. Right now, it seems to be accelerating. 

Some fringe corners again are looking for a scapegoat. 

That’s not Kamala Harris. But some of her cohorts might benefit from a smell-the-coffee moment.