Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Netanyahu: Sotloff Died Because He Symbolized Western Culture

In his condolences to the family of Steven Sotloff, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the American-Israeli journalist symbolized Western culture to the Islamists who murdered him.

“I would like to send condolences to the family of Steven Sotloff who was murdered by ISIS in an act of appalling brutality,” Netanyahu said Thursday night at a ceremony honoring the Israel Police’s Yamam anti-terrorism unit. “Steven was murdered because for the terrorists he was a symbol of the West — the same culture that extremist Islam wants to eradicate.”

Sotloff, who was Jewish and who had Israeli citizenship, was abducted last year after crossing the Syrian border from Turkey. A video documenting his beheading was released Tuesday by the Islamist ISIS organization.

In his address, Netanyahu linked the actions of ISIS with those of Hamas.

“Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, al Qaeda, Jabhat al Nusra, Boko Haram and others like them are all arms of the same Islamist, terrorist, violent and hate filled octopus,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu equated Hamas and ISIS also after the beheading last month of another American journalist, James Foley.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.