The Lies About Josh Shapiro Have Consequences

The Atlantic

18-04-2025

Early Sunday morning, a man named Cody Balmer allegedly attempted to burn down the official residence of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, just hours after Shapiro and his family had finished their Passover seder. Photos from the scene captured the charred remains of the religious books they'd used that evening. In an affidavit for a search warrant, police said that the assailant had told a 911 operator that he'd targeted Shapiro 'for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people.' Balmer later told police that he'd planned to beat the governor with a hammer had he encountered him. He faces eight charges, including attempted homicide.
Attempting to murder an American Jew over the actions of completely different Jews thousands of miles away in the Middle East is textbook anti-Semitism. But in the case of Shapiro, it's particularly perverse, because the governor supports Palestinian statehood and has been a harsh critic of Israel's leadership. 'I personally believe Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the worst leaders of all time,' he told reporters back in January 2024, months before then–Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called on the Israeli prime minister to resign. Shapiro sharply condemned anti-Semitic protesters on university campuses but distinguished them from non-extremist demonstrators, and defended the prerogative of 'young people to righteously protest and question'—a stark contrast to the current administration, which has been deporting foreign students for their speech.
Given Shapiro's actual positions, how might someone get the impression that he is somehow responsible for Israel's actions and in lockstep with its leadership? Most people would not even know, let alone care about, their Rust Belt governor's position on a foreign conflict. But most governors weren't the target of a national campaign effectively blaming them for Israel's conduct. Last summer, when then–Vice President Kamala Harris was choosing her running mate, Shapiro emerged as a top contender, thanks to his robust electoral popularity in an indispensable swing state. And just as quickly, hard-left activists and congressional staffers attempted to pressure Harris not to pick him. 'Tell Kamala and the Democrats now: Say no to Genocide Josh Shapiro for Vice President,' declared the site NoGenocideJosh.com.
In an open democracy, there is nothing wrong with forcefully advocating for Palestinians or against Israel—whatever the Trump administration might say. But there was something very wrong with the Genocide Josh campaign. As political commentators noted at the time, no such campaign was marshalled against any other prospective vice-presidential front-runner, despite all of them having the same—or more hawkish—views on Israel as Shapiro. For example, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the preferred candidate of many in the anti-Shapiro movement, had a long pro-Israel record dating back to his time in the House of Representatives. As a congressman, he voted to condemn a United Nations resolution against Israeli settlements that President Barack Obama had allowed to pass; called Israel 'our truest and closest ally in the region, with a commitment to values of personal freedoms and liberties, surrounded by a pretty tough neighborhood'; and met with Netanyahu personally, releasing a photo to the media of the two of them standing side by side.
As governor, Walz said of the Gaza campus protests: 'I think when Jewish students are telling us they feel unsafe in that, we need to believe them, and I do believe them,' adding that 'creating a space where political dissent or political rallying can happen is one thing; intimidation is another.' Some pro-Palestinian activists were arrested after protesting outside his residence. Walz and Shapiro advanced the same position on ending the Gaza war—except that Shapiro said that a solution would 'ideally' happen without Netanyahu, whom he called 'a destructive force for Israel over time,' whereas Walz never openly criticized the Israeli leader.
None of this inspired any progressive pushback, presumably because Walz is not Jewish, and so was not seen as inherently suspect and secretly in hock to Israeli interests. Put another way, the Genocide Josh movement singled out a Jewish candidate for censure over Israel while tendentiously misrepresenting his stance on the issues in order to discredit him. This was not an expression of traditional sharp-elbowed American political discourse, but rather an echo of ancient antipathies.
Since the attempted murder of Shapiro, we have learned that his assailant may have suffered from severe mental illness. Balmer's mother told CBS News that he 'went off his medication,' and that her pleas for local police to get him 'picked up' the week before had gone unanswered. In the aftermath of such incidents, there is often an unfortunate impulse to stigmatize mental illness as the source of societal prejudice. But those struggling with internal demons don't originate our external ones; they reflect them. In their confusion and pain, such individuals latch on to those already targeted by the broader culture and its preexisting pathologies, showing us not who they are, but who we are. This is why deeply troubled people—from Kanye West (now known as Ye) to the murderously disturbed —have more often gone after Jewish people than, say, the Amish. Weakened minds tend to be overtaken by strong currents.
Crimes like the one against Shapiro hold up a mirror to our collective biases. In this case, it appears that high-profile deceptions and double standards about a Jewish politician's Israel stance contributed to an unwell person trying to kill him. The Passover attack is a warning: If we don't reckon with the lies about Jews in our public sphere, we will see more lies, and more of their consequences.