Webinar Series

Welcome to the ASMEA Webinar Series. Throughout the year we will host discussions with seasoned scholars and practitioners on a variety of topics affecting the Middle East and Africa. These webinars are free and open to the public. Registration is required.

Attendees who require a "Certificate of Attendance" can contact Emily Lucas at [email protected] after the event.

Twenty Years Since 9/11: The Islamist Threat and the State of the Academy

ASMEA held this webinar September 20, 2021. This webinar was led by Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president for research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD).

View Recording Here

As senior vice president for research at FDD, Jonathan oversees the work of the organization’s experts and scholars. He is also on the leadership team of FDD’s Center on Economic and Financial Power, a project on the use of financial and economic power as a tool of statecraft.

Jonathan previously worked as a terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he played an integral role in the designation of numerous terrorist financiers. He has held previous think tank research positions at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Middle East Forum.

Jonathan has written hundreds of articles on the Middle East, along with more than a dozen monographs and chapters for edited volumes. His three books have made unique contributions to the field. State of Failure: Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State (Palgrave Macmillan 2013) argues the main roadblock to Palestinian statehood is the Palestinian Authority’s political dysfunction and mismanagement. Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine (Palgrave Macmillan 2008) is still the only book on the market that analyzes the ongoing Palestinian civil war. Al-Qaeda’s Armies: Middle East Affiliate Groups and the Next Generation of Terror (Washington Institute for Near East Policy 2004) was the first to explore the al-Qaeda franchises of the Middle East.

Jonathan testifies often before Congress and publishes widely in the American and international media. He has appeared on American television channels such as Fox News and CNN, and Arabic language television channels such as Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera.