David Kenneth Schenker (born 1968) is an American diplomat who worked in the Department of Defense during the George W. Bush administration, and was nominated on April 9, 2018, to head the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs in the State Department.

[1] Schenker has spent most of his career at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, starting as an analyst after graduate school.

In 2002, Schenker temporarily left the Washington Institute to be Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel) country director in the Bush Defense Department under Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

At the time of his nomination to the State Department, Schenker was director of the institute's Program on Arab Politics.

He has written two books, Dancing with Saddam: The Strategic Tango of Jordanian–Iraqi Relations (2003) and Palestinian Democracy and Governance: An Appraisal of the Legislative Council (2000).