Ashrawi began her career at Birzeit University. Beginning in the 1990s,Ashrawi was a member of the PLO'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 Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research of the Palestinian Authority in the second Arafat cabinet. Ashrawi was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council representing Jerusalem in 1996 and was re-elected in 2006. She was elected as member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 2009 and 2018,becoming the body's first female member. She resigned in 2020.
As a civil society activist,she founded the Independent Commission for Human Rights in 1994 and served as its Commissioner-General until 1995. In 1998,she also founded MIFTAH,[1] 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 (AMAN).[2]
She is the author of several books,articles,poems and short stories on Palestinian politics,culture and literature. Her book This Side of Peace[3] (Simon &Schuster,1995) earned worldwide recognition.
The Ashrawi family lived in Nablus. From there,they moved to Tiberias],where they remained until Israel became a state in 1948.[7] In 1948,the Mikhail family fled from Tiberias to Amman,Jordan as a result of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Initially,her father,Daoud Mikhail,remained behind in what became Israel,but he later rejoined the family in Jordan.[7][4]
In 1950,her family were able to settle in Ramallah,at the time part of the Jordanian annexed West Bank. Here,she attended the Ramallah Friends Girls School,a Quaker school. She was inspired to activism by her father,who favored a greater role for women in society and was repeatedly imprisoned by the Jordanian authorities for his activities with the Arab Nationalist Socialist Party and the PLO. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees in literature in the Department of English at the American University of Beirut (AUB).[8]
While a graduate student in literature at the American University in Beirut,she dated Peter Jennings of ABC News,who was stationed there as ABC's Beirut bureau chief.[9] 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 re-entry to the West Bank. For the next six years,Ashrawi traveled and completed her education,gaining a Ph.D. in Medieval and Comparative Literature from the University of Virginia. Ashrawi was finally allowed to re-join her family in 1973 under the family reunification plan.[10]
Ashrawi returned to the West Bank under the family reunification plan in 1973 and established the Department of English at Birzeit University. She served as Chair of that department from 1973 to 1978,and again from 1981 through 1984;and from 1986–1990 she served the university as Dean of the Faculty of Arts. She remained a faculty member at Birzeit University until 1995,publishing numerous poems,short stories,papers and articles on Palestinian culture,literature,and politics.
Ashrawi's political activism in the Palestinian territories began almost as early as her academic career at Birzeit. In 1974,she founded the Birzeit University Legal Aid Committee and Human Rights Action Project. Her political work took a greater leap in 1988 during the First Intifada,when she joined the Intifada Political Committee,serving on its Diplomatic Committee until 1993. From 1991 to 1993 she served as the official spokesperson of the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East peace process and a member of the Leadership/Guidance Committee and executive committee of the delegation.
From 1993 to 1995,with the signing of the Oslo Accords by Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin,Palestinian self-rule was established,and Ashrawi headed the Preparatory Committee of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens' Rights in Jerusalem. Ashrawi has also served since 1996 as an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council,Jerusalem Governorate.
In 1996,Ashrawi was appointed the Palestinian Authority Minister of Higher Education and Research in the second Arafat cabinet,but she resigned the post in 1998 in protest against political corruption,specifically Arafat's handling of peace talks and later that year founded MIFTAH[11]—the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy,an initiative which works towards respect for Palestinian human rights,democracy and peace.[12]
In August 2020,Ashrawi lambasted the peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates,writing on Twitter that "Israel got rewarded for not declaring openly what it's been doing to Palestine illegally and persistently since the beginning of the occupation."[14]
On 26 September 2009,in an interview on Riz Khan's One on One on Al Jazeera English,Ashrawi defined her current role in the following way:"I think of myself essentially as a human being with a multidimensional mission. Basically,I am a Palestinian,I am a woman,I am an activist and a humanist,more than being a politician. And at the same time I feel that quite often things are thrust upon us rather than come as a result of a calm and deliberate choice."[15]
Her selection was controversial among some Jewish political organisations. Michael Kapel,a member of the board of the Australia/Israel &Jewish Affairs Council called her "an apologist for Islamic terror."[24] Activist Antony Loewenstein argued in his book My Israel Question that the Australian media,and various Jewish organizations,defamed and vilified Ashrawi in order to prevent her winning the Peace Prize.[25] Of the controversy,Israeli politician Yael Dayan said,"And this Hanan Ashrawi... I think she's very courageous,and she contributes quite a lot to the peace process."[26]Baruch Kimmerling,a sociologist from the Hebrew University,wrote,"As an Israeli,as a Jew and as an academic I am deeply sorry and ashamed that members of the Australian Jewish community are acting against this rightful nomination."[24]
Personal life
On 8 August 1975,she married Emile Ashrawi,[27] a Christian Jerusalemite who is now a photographer and a theater director.[28] They have two daughters.[29]
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