Middle East Expert and Author Jonathan Schanzer 
"Hamas Vs. Fatah: The Battle for Palestine" 
Monday, July 19, 5 pm 
at The Little Nell, Aspen

Minimum Annual Gift Event

On Monday, July 19 at 5 pm at The Little Nell, Jonathan Schanzer, world renown expert on this troubling situation, will provide the answers.

As Mr. Schanzer explains:
"This unresolved conflict has very serious consequences. For one, Washington and Jerusalem lack a legitimate interlocutor.

As they negotiate with Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah faction, they only deal with the ruler of the West Bank (and it is disputable that Abbas even has control of that), and a party that lost the 2006 elections.

If they negotiate with Hamas, the rulers of Gaza, they would be negotiating with a terrorist organization, which runs counter to the policies of both governments."

Mr. Schanzer is the vice president of research for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Previously, he served as a counter terrorism analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He was also 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." 

Mr. Schanzer got his start in the policy world as a research fellow at the Middle East Forum, a Philadelphia-based think tank headed by scholar Daniel Pipes.

Until recently, he was deputy executive director of the Jewish Policy Center and the editor of the JPC's journal, inFOCUS Quarterly. 

Mr. Schanzer holds a BA from Emory University and a masters degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo in 2001, and is working towards a PhD at Kings College London.

Mr. Schanzer has traveled widely in Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Morocco, Kuwait, Qatar, Turkey, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories. He speaks Arabic and Hebrew.

Admission to this event is $50 per person with a Minimum Family Gift of $500 to the 2010 UJA Aspen Valley Annual Campaign. Your gift at any time throughout the year meets the requirements for Both Winter and Summer Campaign Events.

"Hamas Vs. Fatah: the Struggle for Palestine" - The Book
 by Jonathan Schanzer.
"The Palestinians are usually described as one united people with one goal: statehood. My book questions this.

In fact, throughout the book, which tracks the histories of both Hamas and Fatah, it becomes increasingly clear that the Palestinians actually lack a coherent vision for their future. The Hamas faction seeks an Islamist polity.

The Fatah faction seeks a more secular one. Opposition to Israel is perhaps the only issue upon which they truly agree. Yet, Fatah has elected to engage the Israelis (for now), while Hamas is steadfast in its refusal"