The search continues to find a suitable person for Senior Contributing Editor Caroline Glick to debate at the Jerusalem Post conference in New York on June 7
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFCaroline Glick debate poster(photo credit: UDI SHAHAM)
The servers at Google headquarters didn’t know what hit them. Following The Jerusalem Post’s appeal on Wednesday for a worthy adversary to debate Senior Contributing Editor Caroline Glick at the paper’s June 7 annual conference in New York, responses pro and con flooded the Web fast and furious.The story, titled: “Who’s brave enough to debate Caroline Glick?” yielded some 50,000 views on Facebook, and even more on JPost.com, with thousands of likes, shares and comments.“The event has become our version of the ‘Rumble in the Jungle,’ the classic boxing match in Zaire in 1974 between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman,” said Post editor-in-chief Steve Linde. “The only thing is we haven’t yet found a challenger who can, in Ali’s words, ‘float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.’” Glick is famous for her eloquent public speaking and provocative news columns. Several notable personalities who had said they would consider debating her have since backed down.American columnist Jeffrey Goldberg said that – unfortunately – he had prior commitments. The communications director for J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami clarified on Thursday that he had never confirmed his attendance at the conference in the first place.Some worthy opponents have come forward, though, both on the Left and Right side of the political spectrum “I saw in the paper a question: Who would debate Caroline Glick,” said Post columnist Gershon Baskin, who wrote a book on his role in the Gilad Schalit exchange. “The answer is me. I’ve done it before and I would do it again.”Another Post columnist, Martin Sherman, wrote: “How about a challenge from a different direction – a debate over our differences on the approach to the Palestinian issue? I know many of my readers and [Facebook] friends would be keenly interested in such a debate.”Readers suggested an array of possible contenders, including US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and Palestinian representative to the UN Ibrahim Khraishi, as well as legal legends Alan Dershowitz and Irwin Cotler. Other potential adversaries raised by readers in talkbacks and emails include Zionist Union MKs Stav Shaffir and Merav Michaeli – and perhaps even the party’s leader, Isaac Herzog, who is already scheduled to be interviewed at the New York conference by political correspondent Gil Hoffman.“I nominate David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker,” wrote a reader named Michael Zuckerman. “I would love to see her tear him to pieces.”Another reader, Joel Handelman, wrote: “This JPost article suggests that no one wants to debate with Ms. Glick. Her far-rightist views are so extreme, could it be that no one wants to engage with her publicly?” “The question isn’t who’s brave enough,” wrote a reader named ‘Shady Grove.’ “The question is who’s silly enough to think they could prevail against her.”“She’s undebatable,” added Luana Fabri Goriss.
As for Glick herself, she quipped: “If we don’t find someone, then I’ll debate an empty chair like Clint Eastwood did at the Republican National Convention.”