Journalist beheaded by Islamic State had Israeli citizenship, wrote for 'Jerusalem Report'

Sotloff worked in the past for 'The Jerusalem Report,' filing his last dispatch from Syria about a year ago, shortly before he was taken hostage; he lived in Israel for a short period.

By MICHAEL WILNER, REUTERS
Steven Sotloff beheading (photo credit: screenshot)
Steven Sotloff beheading
(photo credit: screenshot)
The Foreign Ministry cleared for publication on Wednesday that Steven Sotloff, the Jewish-American journalist who was beheaded by Islamic State terrorists, had Israeli citizenship as well as US citizenship.
Sotloff grew up in Miami, the son of Arthur and Shirley Sotloff, and previously worked for Temple Beth Am Day School in Florida, according to the synagogue website. Sotloff worked in the past for both The Media Line and The Jerusalem Report, filing his last dispatch for the Report from Syria about a year ago, shortly before he was taken hostage.
He lived in Israel for a short period and played for the Ra'anana rugby club.
Both the US and UK said Wednesday that the video purporting to show an Islamic State terrorist beheading Sotloff in reprisal for US air strikes in Iraq is authentic.
"The US Intelligence Community has analyzed the recently released video showing US citizen Steven Sotloff and has reached the judgment that it is authentic," National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden said.
Britain's Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond also told reporters that a preliminary government analysis showed the video released late on Tuesday  was genuine.
Sotloff, 31, was allegedly murdered by the same masked man shown killing James Foley in a video released to the world on August 19 and authenticated days later by the US government.
In the video, the masked man said: “I’m back, Obama, and I’m back because of your arrogant foreign policy toward the Islamic State.”
Imagery in the video capturing Sotloff’s fate is similar to that featured in the Foley video: the journalist dressed in orange prison wear, on his knees in a desert somewhere along the faded border of Iraq and Syria.
Declining to call the beheading an act of war, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki characterized the purported killing as a “horrific terrorist act” against the United States.
Foley’s murder shook Washington in August, prompting a national dialogue over the extent Islamic State might be threatening the US homeland.
Responding to Foley’s killing, President Obama said the group was a “cancer” that must be rooted from the world through an international effort.
The Obama administration first ordered strikes against the group about two months ago, citing the president’s obligation to protect US assets and personnel on the ground in Baghdad and Arbil, an oil-boom city in the country’s north, home to thousands of American workers.
The US military has conducted more than 100 strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq since the campaign began.
Sotloff’s mother made an emotional appeal for her son’s life on camera last week, pleading to his captors and claiming that Islam requires they protect the lives of innocent actors.
In the video, Sotloff said he was “paying the price” of American policy in the region. Islamic State holds at least two other American civilians captive, and is comprised of thousands of foreign fighters from the US and Western Europe.
The Islamic State fighter threatened that – should the US and UK continue its operations against their group – David Cawthorne Haines, a British citizen, would be the next to die.
Obama seeks an international coalition to fight the group, and will dispatch US Secretary of State John Kerry next week to rally Sunni powers to the cause. Islamic State purports to represent Sunni Islam, but religious and government leaders in Saudi Arabia have said the group is the number one enemy of Islam.
Aggie Grossman, Ilan Evyatar and JTA contributed to this report.