Harris campaign knocked for 'antisemitic defamations' against Josh Shapiro in Washington Post op-ed

Author James Kirchick criticized former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign team for allegedly asking Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro if he had "ever been an agent of the Israeli government" during its vice presidential vetting process.

In an op-ed Friday for The Washington Post, Kirchick wrote that the Harris campaign's implication that Shapiro harbors dual loyalty to the United States and Israel "marks yet another sad chapter in the Democratic Party’s ongoing betrayal of American Jews."

"The most charitable explanation for this implication of dual loyalty, one of the oldest of antisemitic defamations, is incompetence," he wrote. "Since Shapiro’s emergence as a national political figure, many progressives have alleged that he ‘served’ in the Israel Defense Forces."

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According to Kirchick, the claim that Shapiro served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) "butchers the truth," saying the governor merely took part in a high school volunteer program that involved working on a kibbutz and assisting at an Israeli military base.

"Perhaps Dana Remus, a former official for the Obama and Biden administrations who challenged Shapiro’s American bona fides, and her boss, former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr., just had bad information," Kirchick wrote. 

"Assuming that Remus and Holder are both familiar with Google, however, it’s fair to suspect that the real reason the Harris campaign was concerned about Shapiro was that he’s a vocally pro-Israel Jew."

Kirchick argued that even if Shapiro had served in the IDF, "the left’s fixation on him represents a glaring double standard," adding that "what sets off progressives isn’t the principle of serving in a foreign army, but serving in the army of the Jewish state."

Later in the op-ed, Kirchick argued that if "progressives were more self-aware," they would take time to think "before suggesting that Jewish Americans with connections to Israel, a key democratic U.S. ally, are somehow disloyal."

"After all, there is also a long, dishonorable tradition of progressives explicitly rooting for America’s enemies abroad," he added, claiming progressives "wanted the Vietcong to win" against the U.S. during the Vietnam War, among other examples.

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In closing, the author asserted the "appropriateness of Americans joining foreign military forces," such as Israel, "boils down to one's worldview." 

He wrote that those who view Israel as an ally see Americans who served in the IDF as part of the "same admirable continuum" as those who defended the Spanish Republic and against Nazism. Conversely, Kirchick added, those "such as Holder and Remus" view a "connection to Israel that many Americans share constitutes a potential counterintelligence threat."

"By casting aspersions on one of the Democratic Party’s most loyal and generous constituencies, progressives have shown what side they’re on," he concluded.

Harris' press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

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In a preview for Shapiro's upcoming book, "Where We Keep the Light," published Sunday, The Atlantic reported a section devoted to what he described as "unnecessarily contentious" questions from Harris' team, particularly former Biden aide Remus.

One question he said he received during the vetting process included: "Have you ever been an agent of the Israeli government?"

"Had I been a double agent for Israel? Was she kidding? I told her how offensive the question was," Shapiro wrote.

"Remus was just doing her job. I get it. 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."

Shapiro described further probing about his views on political topics, such as whether he'd be willing to "apologize for some of his comments about protesters at the University of Pennsylvania who had built encampments to decry Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and, in some cases, intimidated Jewish students."

Shapiro added that he ultimately declined the running mate offer after Remus suggested the position "might be a financial burden for him and his wife."

Fox News Digital's Linsay Kornick contributed to this report.