Israeli Convicted Felon,Gill Rosenberg A Scam Artist Fighting for Kurds, Identified

She is Gila Rosenberg. A 2009 profile of her criminal exploits was
in Maariv. She was born and raised in Vancouver, BC. Parents had
scorched-earth divorce. Mother forbade contact with her father and
generally suffocated her emotionally. Flew Boeing planes for a civilian
airline. To escape Mom, made aliyah to Israel from Canada. Served in
the IDF in search and rescue unit of Home Front Command. Attempted, but
failed to join Mossad. One look at her background should’ve told them
that she’d be trouble!
Economic distress then led her to a pal from the Hebrew language
ulpan in which she enrolled after making aliyah. She told him she was
game for any scheme except selling her own body. So he recruited her to
be a cold-caller in an Israeli version of Nigerian internet scams,
which targeted naive older Americans and bilked them out of millions of
dollars. The FBI and Israeli police fraud division were watching,
taping every conversation as she called elderly Americans telling them
they’d won the lottery. They reaped tens of millions from pensioners
cheated out of their life savings. When authorities broke up the
conspiracy, the Israelis agreed to have her tried in the U.S., where
punishments were stiffer for such crimes. She served four years in a
U.S. prison.
Released in 2013, she looked around for something new and exciting.
Preferably something lucrative. She chose an option not exactly
criminal, but certainly in keeping with her daring, off-beat past: she
decided to become an anti-Islamist soldier of fortune. She contacted
Iraqi Kurds and offered her services to them. She said she specifically
offered her military training and expertise to the Kurds. She trained
with them and is preparing to join the fighting on the Syrian border.
She called an Israeli radio station, which interviewed her live.
Rosenberg has violated Israeli law by traveling to a country
considered hostile. She could be prosecuted if she returns to Israel.
Though the only figures prosecuted for this offense are Palestinian
citizens. No Jews have been arrested or prosecuted for this infraction.
Given that Israel has potentially exported a former con artist to
fight ISIS, the IDF censor thought better of revealing her identity so
that her past would become known. But given that Rosenberg doesn’t serve
in the IDF, it’s hard to understand what the justification for
censorship is. Do you claim military censors are entitled to prevent
the world from knowing Israelis are mercenaries? Or only when they’re
fighting against Islamists?
Another interesting aspect of this case is that Israel is exporting
not just weapons, but actual soldiers to fight against the Islamists.
Israelis have served as mercenaries for decades and as security
consultants for dictators the world over. But having Israeli Jews
fighting in Arab lands against Islamists is a new wrinkle, even for