Harris Campaign Asks Josh Shapiro: Have You Ever Been an ‘Israeli Double Agent’?

Crazier and crazier: Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has just revealed — it’s in the book he just published, so consider his revelation part of that book’s publicity campaign — that when Kamala Harris was choosing a running mate, members of her staff interviewed him and asked him if he had ever been a “double agent for Israel.” A “double agent” would be one whom the Americans employed as an agent to ferret out Israeli secrets, but who betrayed the Americans to the Israelis — hence, a “double agent.” Kamala’s grand inquisitor surely meant “are you now, or have you ever been, an agent of Israel?” Now, if he wasn’t, he would answer “No.” And guess what — if he were such an agent, he would even more emphatically answer “No.”

More on this quasi-comical quasi-sinister inquisition can be found here: “Senior Biden admin. official Aaron Keyak slams ‘double agent’ question posed to Josh Shapiro,” by Amichai Stein, Jerusalem Post, January 19, 2026:

The revelation that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was asked if he was a “double agent for Israel” during the vetting process for the 2024 Democratic vice-presidential nomination has sparked a firestorm of criticism.

One of those leading the charge is Aaron Keyak, the former deputy special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism during the Biden-Harris administration. The line of questioning was “horrifying” and a clear application of a double standard, he said.

In his new memoir, “Where We Keep the Light,” Shapiro details the intense scrutiny he faced while being considered as a running mate for former vice president Kamala Harris. Members of the vetting team had asked him whether his loyalties were split, specifically using the term “double agent,” he said.

For Keyak, who now serves on the advisory board of the Combat Antisemitism Movement, the question is not just a political misstep; it is a manifestation of an ancient and dangerous trope.

“Antisemitic bias appears in a lot of forms, some of it obvious, some of it subtle,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “But to come out and ask a sitting governor if he is an Israeli double agent lacks any subtlety. It’s hard to understand what that person was thinking. It is a blatantly antisemitic question.”

Keyak said the question relies on the “dual loyalty” trope, which has historically been used to marginalize Jewish citizens by suggesting they are more loyal to Israel than to their own country.

“You certainly wouldn’t have asked Gov. Tim Walz [who was picked by Harris to be her running mate] if he was an Israeli double agent,” he said. “You wouldn’t ask an Irish-American about their secret loyalties to Ireland, or a Catholic American if they had dual loyalties to the Vatican. The rhetoric in the question was blatantly antisemitic.”

While Keyak expressed doubt that Harris would have asked such a question herself, he said the incident had revealed a troubling “conscious or unconscious bias” within the political apparatus….

Fascinating that this question came from the Democrats, you know, the ones who are horrified by any hint of “racism.” The question they put to Josh Shapiro puts me in mind of the late unlamented Joseph McCarthy: “Are you now, or have you ever been, an Israeli agent?” Gosh, how many people would love to have other people to think that they were members of Mossad, when they never even got beyond the level of Wolf in the Cub Scouts and didn’t manage to say “Dyb Dyb Dyb” at the Great Howl.