Hanan Ashrawi

Hanan Ashrawi is a Palestinian politician, activist, and scholar. She began her career at Birzeit University. Beginning in the 1990s, Ashrawi was a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Leadership Committee, serving as the official spokesperson of the Palestinian delegation during the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991. In 1996, Ashrawi was appointed as the Palestinian Authority minister of higher education and research. Ashrawi was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council representing Jerusalem in 1996 and was reelected in 2006. She was elected as a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 2009 and 2018, becoming the body’s first female member. She resigned in 2020. 

As a civil society activist, Ashrawi founded the Independent Commission for Human Rights in 1994 and served as its commissioner-general until 1995. In 1998, she also founded MIFTAH, the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, and she continues to serve as head of its board of directors. In 1999, Ashrawi founded the National Coalition for Accountability and Integrity. Ashrawi is the recipient of numerous awards, including the French decoration “d’Officier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur” in 2006; the 2005 Mahatma Gandhi International Award for Peace and Reconciliation; the 2003 Sydney Peace Prize; the 2002 Olof Palme Prize; the 1999 International Women of Hope “Bread and Roses”; the Defender of Democracy Award – Parliamentarians for Global Action; the 50 Women of the Century; the 1996 Jane Addams International Women’s Leadership Award; the Pearl S. Buck Foundation Women’s Award; the 1994 Pio Manzu Gold Medal Peace Award; and the 1992 Marissa Bellisario International Peace Award.  

Ashrawi is the author of several books, articles, poems, and short stories on Palestinian politics, culture, and literature. Her book This Side of Peace (Simon & Schuster, 1995) earned worldwide recognition. Moreover, she is the recipient of 11 honorary doctorates from universities in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Arab world. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in literature in the Department of English at the American University of Beirut. When the Six-Day War broke out in 1967, Ashrawi, then a 22-year-old student in Lebanon, was declared an absentee by Israel and denied reentry to the West Bank. For the next six years, Ashrawi traveled and completed her education, gaining a PhD in medieval and comparative literature from the University of Virginia. Ashrawi was finally allowed to rejoin her family in 1973 under the family reunification plan.