PLO Executive Committee Member, Member of Palestinian Legislative Council and Head of the PLO Department of Culture and Information Dr. Hanan Ashrawi is a distinguished Palestinian leader, legislator, activist and scholar who served as a member of the Leadership Committee and as an official spokesperson of the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East peace process, beginning with the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991.

 

Dr. Ashrawi was appointed as the Palestinian Authority Minister of Higher Education and Research (1996), but she resigned from the post in protest at the non-implementation of reform plans in governance and peace talks (1998). Prior to that, she was Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Birzeit University, and head of its Legal Aid Committee since the mid-1970s. Dr. Ashrawi was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council representing Jerusalem (1996), and, she was re-elected for the “Third Way” bloc ticket (2006). Making history as the first woman to hold a seat in the highest executive body in Palestine, she was elected as member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 2009.