Josh Shapiro, who is among the frontrunners to be Kamala Harris’s running mate in the US presidential election, volunteered with the Israeli military but did not engage in military activity, Al Jazeera reports according to a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania governor.

“While he was in high school, Josh Shapiro was required to do a service project, which he and several classmates completed through a programme that took them to a kibbutz in Israel where he worked on a farm and at a fishery,” spokesperson Manuel Bonder told The Times of Israel.

“The programme also included volunteering on service projects on an Israeli army base. At no time was he engaged in any military activities,” Bonder said.

Shapiro was facing rebuke for an article he wrote in college in which he said Palestinians are “too battle-minded” to have peace with Israel.

The op-ed, revealed by The Philadelphia Inquirer, played down the prospect of solving the conflict after White House talks between then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 1993.