A Cautionary Tale

"Canada is pursuing all appropriate channels to seek further information and officials are in close contact with local authorities."
"[Foreign Affairs] advises against all travel to Syria and Iraq because of the extremely volatile security situation and Canada's limited ability to provide assistance to its citizens there, and have done so for several years. Furthermore, we advise that Canadians in these countries should leave."
Nicolas Doire, spokesman, Department of Foreign Affairs, Ottawa

"So far, the story seems to be not true."
"So far, there is just reports by IS-supporters, not IS-fighters. [Ms.] Rosenberg is quite popular among the Kurds, especially those [who] sympathize with Israel's national struggle, and the fact that the Israelis/Jews managed to create their own state, something which a lot of Kurdish nationalists aspire to."
"The fact is that [Ms.] Rosenberg is not in Kobani, she did not go to Turkey (from which you can enter Kobani)."
"But according to the YPG she is alive and well. So I really doubt this is the case. Maybe she has no access to Internet now, so she cannot reply."
Wladimir van Wilgenburg, analyst, Jamestown Foundation

"They [the Kurds] are our brothers. They are good people. They love life, a lot like us, really."
Jill Rosenberg, Canadian-Israeli YPG Recruit

Rosenberg with Kurds in Syria Photo Credit: Facebook

Perhaps no more than the mischief of baiting by a pro-Islamic State hanger-on posting that ISIS jihadis fighting in Kobani have taken a "female Zionist soldier" captive. Now wouldn't that be a prize? A "female Zionist soldier". Imagine how much that would thrill the pounding hearts of jihadists to know that the bestial Islamic State terrorists had availed themselves of such a treasure. A Jew, an Israeli, a woman.

If ISIS takes such pleasure in demonstrating the depths of their depravity in decapitating Western captives, including those who have succumbed to their blandishments to surrender to Islam, what kind of display might they make in the annals of public horror in demonstrating graphically what being a Jewish female soldier merits? A video of a torture session, culminating in a beheading of a barely breathing human being?

What a coup! This is a woman, after all, who claims that she became a "SAR NCO and instructor at the Search, Rescue and Civil Defense School" for the Israeli Defence Forces. She would fit right in with a Kurdish culture that accepts that women are as capable as their male counterparts as warriors in defence of their geography and their people. And with that distinguished military background, there's that special fillip involved in capturing and displaying her, ripe for murder.

It appears she hasn't always behaved with circumspection and obedience to law and order. Serving three years in prison in the United States, charged and held guilty of a fake lottery scam targeting elderly people. Extradited from her home in Tel Aviv to the U.S. to face justice. Just a nice Canadian girl from White Rock, British Columbia, but one who took an aviation course at the B.C. Institute of Technology.

Presumably, she's a tough cookie. But then, her toughness and determination will be on display fighting alongside the Kurdish militias she admires in protection of the Kurdish people whom she empathizes with. She has posted photographs of herself from the Kurdish stronghold of Erbil, not from Kobani.

News that she was captured in Kobani simply represents one of those wishful-thinking scenarios that hasn't materialized.