Jonathan Schanzer, PhD is executive director at Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based nonpartisan 501(c)(3) research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy, where he oversees the work of the organization’s experts and scholars. Founded shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, FDD conducts actionable research wielding foreign languages, law, finance, technology, and other open source tools.
Previously, Jon served as a counterterrorism analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he contributed to the designation of numerous terrorism financiers. He entered the policy world as a research fellow at the Middle East Forum, a Philadelphia-based think tank. He also worked as a research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where in 2004 he authored the book Al-Qaeda’s Armies: Middle East Affiliate Groups and the Next Generation of Terror. His other books include Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine (2008), and State of Failure: Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State (2013) the only book on the market that chronicles the Palestinian internecine conflict. His most recent book is Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War (2021).
Jon publishes widely in the national press and has written hundreds of articles on the Middle East and US National Security. He testifies frequently before Congress and appears often in the global media. He hosts "FDD Morning Brief," a podcast dedicated to tracking the war in the Middle East that began on October 7, 2023. He has traveled widely in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia for his research.
Jon holds a BA from Emory University, a master’s degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a PhD from Kings College London. He speaks English, Hebrew and Arabic, which he studied at the American University in Cairo in 2001.