(1946- )
The highest-ranking woman member of the Palestinian movement, official spokesperson of the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East Peace Process (1991-1993). Hanan Ashwari is known for her staunch defense of Palestinian rights, her dedication to human rights, and her commitment to the emancipation of women.
Born a Christian in Palestine in 1946, before the creation of the state of Israel deprived her family and her people of their homes and their rights, Ahswari was educated in a Quaker school in Ramallah, now part of the West Bank. Like many Palestinian families, her parents taught her the history of her country. Her father also encouraged her to pursue an education and taught her that equality is women’s right (Ashwari 1995, 47).
She became a political activist following Israel’s annexation of the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai during the 1967 War (the Six-Day War). At that time she was studying English literature at the American University in Beirut, Lebanon. After obtaining her degree, she was unable to return home to Ramallah because Israel forbade Palestinians who were outside the country in 1967 to come back. Offered a scholarship at the University of Virginia, she obtained her doctorate in English literature there. In 1973, Israel allowed Palestinians families to reunite, and she returned to Ramallah, where she taught English and became the head of the English Department at Ber Zeit University. In her dual role as professor and activist, she participated in student demonstrations against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and their abuse of Palestinian rights, an activity for which the Israelis jailed her for a brief period. She also found time to form a feminist study group with other women and to speak out in defense of women’s rights.
Ashwari’s dual commitment to peace and women’s rights led her to work with Israeli women who also supported Palestinian rights. In 1988, she participated in a women’s conference in Belgium that brought Israeli and Palestinian women together for dialogue. That same year, she appeared on Ted Koppel’s Nightline, along with other Palestinians and Israelis, to participate in a town meeting on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Recognizing the political importance of Palestine to peoples in the Middle East, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker attempted to engineer peace between Palestinians and Israelis following the Gulf War. Hanan Ashwari and other Palestinians met with Baker during the eight months that led up to the 1991 Arab-Israeli Peace Conference in Madrid. She was instrumental in projecting a positive image of the Palestinian people and dispelling an image that equated them with terrorists. Following the disclosure of the Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin’s behind-the-scenes formulation of the 1993 Oslo Accords, Ashwari temporarily withdrew from official politics.
Later she established the Palestinian Independent Commission for the Occupied Territories to help build institutions "as an essential component of the reconstruction of a nation" (Ashwari 1995, 15). She served as minister of higher education and research for the Palestinian Authority from 1996 until her 1998 resignation in protest against corruption within the Palestinian government and against Arafat’s leadership. Since that time, she has dedicated herself to a just peace and a humanitarian solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy.
