Ed Kessler
The Diplomat
People, composure and the difficult conversation held well.
Ed Kessler is a scholar known for his work on interfaith relations, particularly among Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This interview reveals his commitment to fostering dialogue and addressing complex issues surrounding anti-Semitism and the Israel-Gaza conflict, showcasing his ability to navigate sensitive topics with a focus on building coalitions.
“There are lots of reasons for Hamas attack, and you've discussed them in the program, the rest is politics. I don't think they thought about interfaith relations. I think they wanted to undermine whatever conversations that were going on between Israel and the Gulf states. What they call normalization.”
“Not speaking to the people who are trying to do that, you're speaking to the leaders, the representatives, quite rightly. But if you go on the ground, there are some little pockets of excellence, whether it's Jewish and Arab groups in Palestinian groups, in Israel trying to protect certain places.”
“Struggled with that, you know, because much of my work is about turious non-Jewish relations. First of all, there is within us, all of us, an aspect where there is a dislike of somebody else. You know, we're not all perfect. So you have that within the human condition.”
“In other words, you take a term and you kind of make it fit to whatever you want. A term like Zionism. Zionism can mean a whole array of different things, whether I'm a West Bank's nationalist religious settler on the West Bank, whether I'm a secular Jew in Tel Aviv, or whether I'm sitting in London or in Cambridge or wherever I'm sitting…”
The Rest Is Politics: Leading — 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler
LISTEN AT THE SOURCE ↗THE RECORD IS CHECKABLE