Oren Kessler


Oren Kessler is a political analyst and journalist. He was formerly deputy director for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.

Background and education

Kessler grew up in Rochester, New York, is a graduate of the University of Toronto, and holds an MA in Government from the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya.

Career

Between 2006 and 2013 Kessler worked in Israel; he was Arab affairs correspondent for the Jerusalem Post and an editor, translator and writer for the English edition of Haaretz. His work has appeared in publications including The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, Politico, The New Republic and Foreign Affairs.
Kessler previously served as a Middle East research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society think tank in London. His research areas include Egyptian politics, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Israeli history.
Kessler had corresponded extensively with fellow journalist Steven Sotloff in the months before Sotloff was murdered by ISIS militants in 2014. Sotloff wrote to Kessler in 2011 to introduce himself as a fellow former student at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. The two had both covered the Arab Spring, and, at the time Sotloff first contacted him, Sotloff was reporting from Libya while Kessler was covering the country for the Jerusalem Post.
He was also one of the journalists targeted by former CNN correspondent Jim Clancy in a 2015 Twitter incident that led to Clancy's resignation.