Hanan Ashrawi: Peace in the Middle East - Who Needs it?

Founder and Secretary General of MIFTAH, the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, Dr. Hanan Ashrawi is a Palestinian legislator, human rights activist, and scholar. Dr. Ashrawi holds a B.A. and an M.A. from the American University of Beirut and a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. From 1973-95, Dr. Ashrawi was a faculty member of Birzeit University where she held several positions including that of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts. She is the recipient of numerous international peace, human rights and democracy awards, such as the Olof Palme Award, Sydney Peace Prize, the Defender of Democracy Award, and more recently, the Mahatma Gandhi International Award for Peace and Reconciliation, among many others. She has also received several Honorary Doctorate Degrees from universities in the United States, Canada, Europe and the Arab World. Ashrawi's book, This Side of Peace, is a memoir of her experience as an envoy and a Palestinian. This lecture is sponsored in part by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies Foreign Policy Distinguished Speaker Series.