Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has had to defend his stance on Israel after an op-ed he penned more than three decades ago, in which he wrote of being an Israeli army volunteer and disparaged the Palestinian people, resurfaced.
“Since he wrote this piece as a 20-year-old student, Gov. Shapiro has built close, meaningful, informative relationships with many Muslim-American, Arab-American, Palestinian Christian and Jewish community leaders all across Pennsylvania,” Shapiro’s spokesman Manuel Bonder told Fox News Digital in a statement.
“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,” Bonder continued.
The Philadelphia Inquirer uncovered the essay that Shapiro wrote for the Campus Times, the student newspaper of the University of Rochester, from which Shapiro graduated in 1995. In the article, Shapiro stressed his view that “Palestinians will not peacefully coexist,” because “they do not have the capabilities to establish their own homelands and make it successful even with the aid of Israel and the United States.”