Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is widely touted as a potential Democratic vice presidential nominee in the 2024 election, wrote as a college student that he believed peace between Israel and Arabs was “virtually impossible” and “will never come,” The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Friday.
Writing in the University of Rochester’s Campus Times newspaper shortly after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, Shapiro, then 20, wrote that he was skeptical of the peace plan in an op-ed titled “Peace not possible.”
“Palestinians will not coexist peacefully,” he wrote. “They do not have the capabilities to establish their own homeland and make it successful even with the aid of Israel and the United States.”
“They are too battle-minded to be able to establish a homeland of their own,” he added. “The Palestinians will not be satisfied with only Gaza and Jericho, they will demand more, such as Jerusalem, the demands will turn violent and Israel will be in a similar position of having to swap land for ‘peace.’”
Manuel Bonder, a spokesman for Shapiro, told the Inquirer that Shapiro’s views on Israel-Palestine have since changed and that he supports a two-state solution.
“Governor Shapiro has built close, meaningful, informative relationships with many Muslim-American, Arab-American, Palestinian Christian and Jewish community leaders all across Pennsylvania,” Bonder told the paper.
“The governor greatly values their perspectives and the experiences he has learned from over the years—and as a result, as with many issues, his views on the Middle East have evolved into the position he holds today,” the spokesman said.
Shapiro further distanced himself from the op-ed at a press conference on Friday.
“I was 20,” Shapiro told reporters. “I have said for years, years before Oct. 7, that I favor a two-state solution—Israelis and Palestinians living peacefully side-by-side, being able to determine their own futures and their own destiny.”
Shapiro concluded the college op-ed by noting that he is “a Jew and a past volunteer in the Israeli army.” His short biography at the end of the op-ed notes that he “spent five months studying in Israel and volunteered in the Israeli army.”
In response to a request for clarification about the extent and nature of his service in Israel, Bonder told JNS that Shapiro volunteered in Israel while he was a student at Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy in the Philadelphia suburbs.
“While he was in high school, Josh Shapiro was required to do a service project, which he and several classmates completed through a program that took them to a kibbutz in Israel where he worked on a farm and at a fishery,” Bonder told JNS. “The program also included volunteering on service projects on an Israeli army base.”
“At no time was he engaged in any military activities,” Bonder added.
