Oren Kessler

June 3, 2023 | |

Egyptian border policeman kills three Israeli troops

An Egyptian policeman killed three Israeli troops on Saturday before being shot dead in a rare border infiltration that the countries are jointly investigating. The assailant first opened fire on...

November 23, 2020 | Aykan Erdemir |

Washington Can Help Free Turkey’s Highest-Profile Prisoner of Conscience

Among advocates for Turkey’s minorities, Osman Kavala is a secular saint. As a philanthropist, he has been the benefactor of initiatives to document and restore heritage sites, support arts and...

April 3, 2017 | FDD Policy Brief

Trump Offers Sisi Praise, but Unclear What Else

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi traveled to Washington on Monday for his first-ever Whi...

April 3, 2017 | Boris Zilberman |

Russia’s Charm Offensive in North Africa

With the world’s attention focused on the question of Russian influence in the United States and the European Union, the Kremlin is quietly making inroads in anot...

March 24, 2017 |

Mubarak Freed, Egypt Shrugs

Hosni Mubarak was freed Friday from a military hospital in the Cairo suburb of Maadi, six years after mas...

February 13, 2017 | Oren Kessler |

Egypt Picks Sides in the Syrian War

On February 1, a military transport plane left a Russian airbase in Latakia, Syria, landed at an airfield...

December 28, 2016 |

Kerry’s Address: More Posturing Than Policy

Secretary of State John Kerry, in a speech...

December 23, 2016 | Oren Kessler |

Why did Egypt risk ties to Israel and Trump with UN resolution?

Egypt on Wednesday night circulated a draft U.N. Security Council resolution calling upon Israel to "...

November 30, 2016 | Oren Kessler

Egypt’s Unlikely Ardor for Trump

More than three weeks after the election, the American public remains divided...

October 20, 2016 | Oren Kessler

Rizvi’s Reformation

The Atheist Muslim opens with snow in Saudi Arabia. The author, Ali Rizvi, is in fifth grade at the American school in Riyadh, where students are folding glittery snowflakes out of construction p...

August 5, 2016 | Oren Kessler |

The Israel-Egypt partnership deepens

Egypt last week marked Revolution Day, the day commemorating the 1952 Free Officers' revolt that toppled the playboy King Farouk. Next door in Israel, the Egyptian embassy threw a party....

July 22, 2016 | Oren Kessler |

By blocking UN vote, Egypt sticks finger in Turkey’s eye

Egypt blocked a United Nations Security Council resolution this past Saturday that...

June 22, 2016 | Oren Kessler

Hamas and Egypt Make Amends?

A steady stream of reports in recent weeks has suggested that Egypt is burying the hatchet with Hamas. The Washington Post saw an “...

May 17, 2016 | Oren Kessler

ISIS Targets Egypt

Earlier this month, the Islamic State (ISIS) launched a massive media campaign in support of the insurgency in Sinai. Officials from 14 of its so-called provinces in Iraq, Libya, and Syria ...

April 14, 2016 | Oren Kessler |

Egypt hands strategic Red Sea islands to Saudis, and Israel doesn’t object

Egypt and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement Saturday for Cairo to return control of two uninhabited but strategic Red Sea islands to the kingdom. The islands — Tiran and Sanafir — lie...

April 7, 2016 |

U.S. mulls pulling Sinai peacekeeping force

The United States is considering pulling its roughly 700 troops out of a base its forces have occupied for three decades in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, CNN...

February 15, 2016 | Oren Kessler |

The Middle East’s Conflicts Are About Religion

A meme is gaining traction within American government and media, and it goes like this: The conflicts of the Middle East aren’t about religion. Jihadist violence? Garden-variety ...

January 29, 2016 | Oren Kessler

Al-Jazeera Files $150M Claim Against Egypt for Harassment of Journalists

The Al-Jazeera news network has filed a $150M arbitration claim against the government of Egypt, making good on a three-year-old threat to seek redress for what it describes as the persecution of...

November 6, 2015 | |

The Sinai Crash is Sisi’s Nightmare

It’s still too early to definitively state the cause of the Russian airliner crash...

August 24, 2015 | |

Trading Peace in Egypt and Israel

This year marks the tenth anniversary of an Egyptian-Israeli economic partnership that has quietly pumped billions into Cairo’s vulnerable economy. The free-trade framework known as Qualify...