Glick was born in the US and has degrees from Columbia University and Harvard University. She was also an officer in the IDF who worked on the Oslo negotiations team, and a deputy foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Weiss is the former mayor of Kedumim and a longtime settler leader, who is from Ramat Gan, not the US. Bennett, however, is the son of two American parents who moved to Israel from San Francisco.New Right declined to comment, with a party spokesman saying he will let Shaked’s comment speak for itself.More than 400 Twitter accounts liked Shaked’s tweet, including Yediot political reporter Yuval Karni and Globes columnist Moti Kristal, among other prominent figures. Meretz activist Uri Zaki responded that “in the current American administration, Glick could be a leading candidate for ambassador to the UN or human rights commissioner.”But many of the responses accused Shaked of bigotry.Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel executive director David London called the comment “disgusting and derogatory... a horrible thing to write, and totally not true.”“Olim from Western countries are some of the best and brightest and most committed Jews and human beings that we know of,” London said. “They have a high percentage of MAs, the vast majority have BAs. There are lawyers, doctors and some of the most accomplished professors and people in the world have made aliyah, and contribute every day to Israel. There is not a hospital [in Israel] that you can go to without seeing Anglos in the most senior positions.Former Yesh Atid MK Dov Lipman, who made aliyah from the US, filmed himself at a burger restaurant in Tel Aviv asking in Hebrew, “Do you want fries with that?” He thanked Shaked for suggesting a new job for him. Lipman posted the video on Twitter, and several other users made their own copycat videos.קרולין גליק? באמת, נפתלי ואיילת? אתם באמת מניחים שיש איזה כוח אלקטורלי לתת-הזרם המשעשע תמיד של ישראמריקאים מחפופים שהגיעו לכאן ממולדתם - שבה ספק אם היו משיגים ג'וב שאינו כולל את השאלה "תרצה צ'יפס עם זה?" - כדי להיות דניאלה וייס עם מבטא? נו, בהצלחה שיהיה לכם.
— Raanan Shaked (@raananshaked) January 2, 2019
Yesh Atid took the opportunity to promote an event in English.“Journalist @raananshaked thinks English speakers who move to Israel are stupid and only here because they can’t get a job elsewhere,” the party’s tweet in English reads. “We don’t & that’s why Yesh Atid has the most active English speakers branch in Israel & Yair Lapid is doing an English town hall on the 13th.”Almost a full day later, following the uproar, Shaked clarified that “American and Anglo-Saxon immigrants to Israel are mostly excellent people, Zionists, and make a significant and necessary contribution to the state. A small minority of them are messianic, right-wing extremists. Caroline Glick represents the extremist alt-Right, sends Rosh Hashanah cards that mark ‘internal enemies’ and has delusions of annexation. Is she an electoral asset? We’ll see.”In 2017, Shaked joined a Nefesh B’Nefesh flight of immigrants from the US to Israel, and wrote a column with an entirely opposite message. Shaked said that they “closed successful businesses, left beautiful homes, [and] said goodbye to friends and families.” He wrote that the immigrants were “sober-minded” and aware of the difficulties that could come with moving to Israel.Journalist @raananshaked thinks English speakers who move to Israel are stupid and only here because they can’t get a job elsewhere. We don’t & that’s why Yesh Atid has the most active English speakers branch in Israel & Yair Lapid is doing an English town hall on the 13th. pic.twitter.com/0oZ6dEy1D5
— Yesh Atid (@YeshAtidEng) January 3, 2019