Who is prominent Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi?

The youngest of five daughters, Ms Ashrawi was inspired by her father to play a role in politics

Top Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi has resigned, marking a major change to the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. AFP

Hanan Ashrawi, a pioneer for women's involvement in Palestinian politics and society – backed and inspired by her father – became a voice that the West can identify and identify with for the Palestinian cause.

After more than a decade as a senior member of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, she resigned from her post on the group’s executive committee, renewing calls for reform and the inclusion of women and the youth.

She was the first elected woman to join the committee, in 2009 and again in 2018, and is considered one of Palestine’s most notable and outspoken officials.

Ms Ashrawi, 74, received a positive Covid-19 diagnosis a short time before she stepped down, but has not reported any serious deterioration in health.

She rose to prominence in the West during media interviews where her fluent English and ability to express the Palestinian view point succinctly and effectively set her apart from other Palestinian officials at the time.

She met every US president since George H W Bush, with the exception of outgoing President Donald Trump who defunded the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA and shut the PLO offices in Washington in 2019.

She has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration – and the US-brokered normalisation agreements between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain.

Ms Ashrawi was the spokeswoman for the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid peace conference with Israel in 1991, as part of the Middle East peace process, where she announced Palestine’s demand for statehood.

She noted the changes in the Palestinian collective, which largely opposed talks with Israel in the 1970s but grew to embrace negotiations and a political solution a decade later.

She criticised the Oslo Accords, which were signed two years later, because they did not have real guarantors and “put the onus on the weaker party, the occupied party”.

Ms Ashrawi opposes the use of violence against civilians whether it was from the Israeli or the Palestinian side.

“It takes greater courage to make peace and not to resort to violence than it does to just take revenge and resort to violence," she said in a 2003 BBC interview.

She founded Miftah, the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, and the National Coalition for Accountability and Integrity (Aman) think tank in addition to the Independent Commission for Human Rights.

The youngest of five daughters, Ms Ashrawi was born in Nablus to a Christian family. Her father Daoud in particular, one of the PLO's founders, played a role in motivating her to enter politics.

"Liberate yourself, and you will liberate your country," Ms Ashrawi recalls her father saying.

In her 20s Ms Ashrawi joined the General Union of Palestinian Students, which included other prominent members such as former Palestinian president Yasser Arafat. She earned a doctorate in Medieval and Comparative Literature from the University of Virginia, US, in the 1960s, and went on to become the Palestinian Authority’s minister of higher education and research, resigning after two years over the lack of reforms.

She said the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, when the Israelis captured the West Bank and Gaza, along with Ms Ashrawis' family home, became her decisive moment, when the Palestinian issue became personal.

“It hit home, it became personal and it affected me and a whole generation,” she told the BBC.

“People who felt now that this is no longer our parents’ problem, it’s ours. It’s a legacy we have to take on. And something that has been driving me ever since.”