1. Hanan Daoud Mikhael Ashrawi is a Palestinian politician, activist, and scholar.
20 Facts About Hanan Ashrawi
1. 2.
In 1996, Hanan Ashrawi was appointed as the Palestinian Authority Minister of Higher Education and Research.
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Hanan Ashrawi was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council representing Jerusalem in 1996 and was re-elected in 2006.
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Hanan Ashrawi was elected as member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 2009 and 2018, becoming the body's first female member.
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In 1999, Hanan Ashrawi founded the National Coalition for Accountability and Integrity.
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Hanan Ashrawi is the author of several books, articles, poems and short stories on Palestinian politics, culture and literature.
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Hanan Ashrawi was born to Palestinian Christian parents on 8 October 1946 in the city of Nablus, British Mandate for Palestine, now part of the occupied West Bank.
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Hanan Ashrawi's father, Daoud Mikhail, was a physician and one of the founders of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and her mother Wadi'a Ass'ad Mikhail, was an ophthalmic nurse.
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Hanan Ashrawi 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.
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Hanan Ashrawi received her bachelor's and master's degrees in literature in the Department of English at the American University of Beirut.
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Hanan Ashrawi was finally allowed to re-join her family in 1973 under the family reunification plan.
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On 8 August 1975, she married Emile Hanan Ashrawi, a Christian Jerusalemite who is a photographer and a theater director.
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Hanan Ashrawi is the recipient of eleven honorary doctorates from universities in the US, Canada, Europe, and the Arab world.
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Hanan Ashrawi is a member of various international advisory boards and councils.
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Hanan Ashrawi returned to the West Bank under the family reunification plan in 1973 and established the Department of English at Birzeit University.
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Hanan Ashrawi remained a faculty member at Birzeit University until 1995, publishing numerous poems, short stories, papers and articles on Palestinian culture, literature, and politics.
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From 1993 to 1995, with the signing of the Oslo Accords by Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin, Palestinian self-rule was established, and Hanan Ashrawi headed the Preparatory Committee of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens' Rights in Jerusalem.
18.
Hanan Ashrawi has served since 1996 as an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Jerusalem Governorate.
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Hanan Ashrawi's selection drew praise from Mary Robinson, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
20.
Hanan Ashrawi's selection was controversial among some Jewish political organisations.