Although the hundreds of Middle East studies courses in universities nationwide portend to treat the region exhaustively, there is a key component of the conflict that most ignore. “For more than two years, Hamas and Fatah have been in a deadly war,” author Jonathan Schanzer said on June 3 in a conference at the Heritage Foundation. “The media have downplayed it and academics have attempted to rewrite the history of it.”

“It is not a new conflict but goes back 20 years.” Schanzer, the author of Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine spoke at a conference co-sponsored by the Endowment for Middle East Truth.

Hamas, one Palestinian faction, dominates the government in Gaza while Fatah, another Palestinian group, is the controlling authority in the West Bank. “The West Bank watched as Gaza was attacked by the Israeli Defense Forces,” Schanzer told the crowd. “Palestinian Authority officials in the West Bank were giving target information to the IDF so that they could hit Hamas.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.