Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of research for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the author of the new book “State of Failure: Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State,“ will be on campus speaking on the current state of the Israel Palestinian discord and recent Middle East developments.
Dr. Schanzer’s lecture will be held in the Trustee Room in the Turner Lynch Campus Center on Tuesday, August 29 at 9:45 a.m., and followed by a Q&A session. Admission priority will be given to current Oglethorpe students, faculty, and staff.
Dr. Schanzer is part of the leadership team of FDD’s Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance, which provides policy and subject matter expertise on the use of financial and economic power to the global policy community. Since joining FDD in February 2010, Dr. Schanzer has been singularly focused on ensuring that FDD delivers not only accurate and timely research, but also research that is useful to decision makers inside the Beltway, across America, and around the world.
Previously, Dr. Schanzer served as a counterterrorism analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he took part in the designation of numerous terrorism financiers. Dr. Schanzer got his start in the policy world as a research fellow at the Middle East Forum, a Philadelphia-based think tank. He then worked as a research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where he authored the book “Al-Qaeda’s Armies: Middle East Affiliate Groups and the Next Generation of Terror“. After his stint at Treasury, he was deputy executive director of the Jewish Policy Center and the editor of the JPC’s journal, inFOCUS Quarterly.
Dr. Schanzer holds a BA from Emory University, a master’s degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a doctorate from Kings College London, where he wrote his dissertation on the U.S. Congress and its efforts to combat terrorism in the 20th century.
Dr. Schanzer publishes widely in the national press, has testified before Congress, and makes frequent appearances on television. He has traveled widely in Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Morocco, Kuwait, Qatar, Turkey, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories. Dr. Schanzer speaks Arabic and Hebrew. Schanzer is a frequent media commentator on issues regarding the Middle East. His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal Europe, Foreign Policy, Politico, Commentary, American Spectator, New York Post, Jerusalem Post, Weekly Standard, The New Republic and the Philadelphia Inquirer. He has appeared on television channels such as Fox News, Bloomberg, and al-Jazeera.
