Nadene Goldfoot
Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus (Hebrew: יהונתן קונריקוס; born 1979) in Jerusalem is 46 years old. He was raised in Malmo, Sweden from the age of 13. In 1997 when 18, he joined the IDF, serving in the Givati Brigade, and remained there till 2021 when he was 24 before returning to duty as a reservist in 2023; at the age of 26. His alma mater is Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is now a Swedish-Israeli spokesperson and media commentator that I depend on.
He did a lot more in the IDF. From 1997 to 2000 he served as an infantry soldier in an elite unit in southern Lebanon. From 2000 to 2005 he served as a company commander in Gaza. He then became responsible for analyzing military doctrines of the United States, Great Britain, France, and to some extent Germany. He subsequently became a liaison officer between the IDF and United Nations peacekeeping forces – first in Lebanon (UNIFIL, 2009–11), then in the Golan Heights (UNDOF, 2011–13), and then as Deputy Chief Liaison Officer of the IDF Northern Command (2013–14). Conricus was the international spokesperson of the IDF in the IDF Spokesperson's Unit from 2017 to 2021. All this at such a young age, which is quite typical of our Israeli services.
People in the United States are not receiving accurate information about Israel. It's usually on the negative side which is mostly misinformation. I believe many would appreciate hearing from reliable people instead of websites for one reason or another are so slanted.
Lt.Col. Jonathan Conricus, to me, is the best from Israel that that is letting us know the truth of what is going on. He was the international spokesperson of the Israel Defense Forces from 2017 to 2021 and again in 2023. Conricus is a senior fellow at the think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, based in Washington, DC, in the United States. He was an officer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), in which he served for 24 years.
Lt. Col. Conricus is the son of an Israeli mother and a Swedish father. His grandfather, Daniel Bornstein, grew up in Oswiecim in Poland, where Nazi Germany operated the Auschwitz concentration camp, and was a Holocaust survivor along with his sister. The rest of Bornstein's family was murdered. He graduated with a BA in Middle Eastern and Military Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He speaks the Swedish Scanian dialect.
He also served as a military diplomat. Conricus served for three years, from 2014 to 2017, at the United Nations in New York City, seconded and on loan to the Office of Military Affairs of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO). He was an Assessment Officer, and during that time he learned Arabic. He was the first Israeli officer to hold any position at the UN. He was responsible for collecting information for UN forces deployed in war zones around the world, including in Nigeria, Somalia, Congo, and Ukraine, and assessing risks.
Along came the worst event Jews around the world and particularly Israel has ever faced. Hours after the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Conricus returned to duty as a reservist and was appointed international spokesperson for the IDF. He served in that position for the following three months. During that time, he would commonly do 30 interviews in a 24-hour period. He gave interviews on, among others, BBC, CNN, Sky News, NBC, and ABC News. After the October 7, 2023, attack he said: "If Hamas were to come out of their hiding places.., return our hostages — all 212 of them — and surrender unconditionally, then the war would end. If they won't, we will probably have to go in and get it done."[
He's the man to look for that's giving a report on Israel. One reason he's been so popular is that he speaks as well, in English, as Netanyahu, who I have always thought was the best. Both speak intelligently and are better in English than most Americans! They are so rational! He's making progress. He's appeared on the following:
- ABC News and ABC News Live: He has been interviewed multiple times on ABC platforms, including speaking with David Muir and Linsey Davis.
- CNN: Conricus has been featured on CNN, for example, speaking with Erin Burnett.
- Fox News and Fox Business: He has provided commentary and analysis to various Fox News platforms, including Fox News Digital and LiveNOW from FOX.
- CBN News:
You can tell; Jonathan is one of my favorite people!
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