Caroline Glick being touted for UN ambassador post

Caroline B. Glick. (photo credit: JPOST STAFF)

The New Right Party of Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked fell just 1,454 votes short of crossing the electoral threshold, but its sixth candidate Caroline Glick expressed confidence that she carried her weight.

In her first interview since the April 9 election, Glick noted that she helped the New Right win the most votes in her hometown of Efrat, as well as other Anglo strongholds across the country.

“Obviously I am very disappointed with the overall results of the election, but I am satisfied with my team winning in Gush Etzion and winning Efrat by 10% over the Likud,” she told The Jerusalem Post. “I had never been in a campaign before, so I am satisfied. With all the disappointment, I can’t see this as anything but successful for me.”

 Glick said she had nothing negative to say about her party leaders Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked and that the country has lost by them not being in the next cabinet after they succeeded so much in the outgoing government.

“It’s a real shame, because Naftali and Ayelet were really good ministers in their jobs,” Glick said. “She mainstreamed the need for judicial reform that I had been writing about for 15 years. Israelis didn’t understand before. Naftali gave students opportunities they never had. Israel is worse off without them as ministers.”

Bennett and Shaked made Glick their number one draft pick, announcing her as their first candidate after forming their party. They relied on a poll by respected international strategist Moshe Klughaft that found that Glick could bring in more votes from English speakers than any other potential candidate.

Glick’s Anglo campaign produced 49 English events in 60 days, including five mass events, 18 parlor meetings and nine elections panels. Glick also participated in Hebrew panels and events with a large Anglo presence that were sponsored by organizers, such as the Ruderman Foundation, StandWithUs and the Geneva Initiative.

A native of Houston, who was raised in Chicago, there was a direct connection between the places where she campaigned and the overall vote totals.

Anglos turned out to be one of the largest bases for the party, winning 33% of the vote in Efrat. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud had 2,596 voters in Gush Etzion in 2015 compared to 2,377 in 2019, because of the New Right’s success there, even though Likud went up five seats nationally.

In Modiin, Raanana and Ginot Shomron the party finished in third place behind Likud and Blue and White. The party also did well in Mevasseret Zion, home of Glick’s campaign manager, Jeremy Saltan.

Glick said she was continually impressed by the large audiences who turned out for her events. She credited her staff members and volunteers, who were told over and over again that people would be more likely to vote for her party if she was higher on the list.

 “The reaction we got most was people saying ‘I hope you don’t get in so you can go back to writing your articles in the Post,’” said Matanya Harow, an Efrat resident who was a very active volunteer for Glick’s campaign. “She has this phenomenal ability to articulate things. She would have been able to achieve more than any other new MK. The future is bright for her. She still might be an MK later or an ambassador. This whole experience has just given her another layer of depth.”

Glick said she was glad that thanks to the campaign, she got out key messages about the need for legal reform and applying Israeli law to Area C that she had repeatedly featured in her Jerusalem Post columns.

“As a writer, I was heartened beyond belief when at the end of the campaign, Netanyahu talked about applying Israeli law to Judea and Samaria,” she said. “I would feel even more vindicated if the Trump plan won’t call for two states, after 19 years of writing, so we won’t go back on the merry-go-round from Elm Street. Nothing is more vindicating than what I wrote in 2013 being adopted in 2019 by leaders of Israel and the United States.”

Glick expressed satisfaction that the threshold was not crossed by the Zehut Party of former Likud MK Moshe Feiglin, who she called “destestable” and whose platform she called “irrational.”

As she did during the campaign, Glick had praise for Netanyahu, who she said has done a great job as prime minister. She said she backs passing a law to make it illegal to try a sitting prime minister.

“The cases against him are based on legal theories that don’t exist,” she said.

There are now people pushing Netanyahu to appoint Glick as the next ambassador to the United Nations. Harow said the UN would be a great place for her to represent the country as an ambassador.

“If he asked me, I would say yes, because the kind of defense of Israel I’ve done for 19 years in my writing is what Israel deserves at the UN,” Glick said.

• United Nations
• Caroline Glick
• New Right

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