Wikipedia editors appear to be scrubbing any reference to service with the Israel Defense Forces from the profile of Kamala Harris’s presumptive VP pick, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro.
Users took to Twitter to note that references to Shapiro past volunteering with the Israeli army have now disappeared.
Gab founder Andrew Torba Tweeted, “Wikipedia editors/admins are working furiously to scrub the fact that Josh Shapiro volunteered for a foreign nation’s army.”
Torba posted screenshots of the editing history of Shapiro’s Wikipedia page to back up his claim.
In the screenshot, an editor who wrote part of Shapiro’s page can be seen expressing his surprise that the reference to Shapiro’s overseas military service was removed.
“I added the fact that Josh Shapiro studied and volunteered for the IDF during/just before his university years,” the editor wrote, noting that Shapiro had detailed his service with the IDF in a Philadelphia Inquirer article. This reference was then apparently deleted, the editor explains, “due to lack of credible source.”
The claim of service in the IDF reappeared on Friday in The Philadelphia Inquirer, which quoted an op-ed Shapiro wrote when he was 20.
Shapiro himself has now backtracked on the story, including at a press conference held on Friday and in official statements to the press.
“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,” a representative of Shapiro told The Jewish National Syndicate.
“The program also included volunteering on service projects on an Israeli army br. At no time was he engaged in any military activities.”
Shapiro has yet to be formally picked at Kamala Harris’s running-mate, but speculation is rife after a Tweet was apparently “leaked” announcing that he will be. Cherelle Parker, Philadelphia’s mayor, posted the Tweet yesterday.
Jack Posobiec suggested that it wasn’t a leak at all.
“This was posted bc Kamala is getting cold feet about appointing Shapiro due to his baggage,” Posobiec Tweeted.
“Team Josh is trying to force her hand.”
The “baggage” Shapiro brings includes lingering questions about his role in a cover-up of the death of Ellen Greenberg, a young woman whose death was ruled a suicide despite the fact that she was stabbed over 20 times, including ten times in the back; his approval of the “controlled burn” of the Norfolk Southern train in East Palestine, Ohio; his record as governor of Pennsylvania; and his support for Israel.
In the op-ed quote in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Shapiro wrote that Palestinians are “too battle-minded to be able to establish a peaceful homeland of their own.”
Israel, and its war in Gaza in response to the 7 October attacks, remains a bitter dividing line among Democrats.
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