Hanan Ashrawi is a scholar and activist in the struggle for a Palestinian homeland. As the founder and secretary general of the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, her academic expertise has played a vital role in the development and recognition of Palestinian culture. She 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. Ashrawi was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council representing Jerusalem in 1996. She was later elected as member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 2009 and in 2018. Ashrawi is the recipient of numerous awards from all over the world, including the distinguished French decoration d’Officier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur in 2006, the 2005 Mahatma Gandhi International Award for Peace and Reconciliation, the 2003 Sydney Peace Prize, the 1996 Jane Addams International Women’s Leadership Award, and the 1992 Marissa Bellisario International Peace Award.
In her lecture, Ashrawi discussed the global context and human imperative of peace in the Middle East and promoted awareness of Palestinian culture. Ashrawi commented on the fact that the key objectives of the Dunning Trust lectureship resonated with the plight and aspirations of the Palestinian people in their quest for dignity, freedom, and self-determination. She insisted that the audience understand the historical and political context of Palestine, rather than seeking to decontextualize it, as if policy is some abstraction of a situation and the Palestinians emerged only in relation to Israel. She described the dual injustice Palestinians had been subject to: the first, the injustice of dispossession, expulsion, and exile, and the second, the injustice of living under occupation and losing one’s freedom and rights. Alongside this, the narrative of Palestinian history and Palestinian humanity had been distorted and denied. Much of the Palestinian struggle, was therefore to affirm their existence and their history in search of validation and recognition. Ashrawi criticized the neo-conservative approach to the Middle East, which saw every problem as fixable by the installation of democracy: Palestinians already had democracy, she said, it was the occupation that was the issue. Ashrawi concluded by reminding the audience that the Palestinian question was not a religious war. It was a man-made conflict and it was therefore able to be solved. Those who wanted to view resolution as impossible, she said, were simply avoiding responsibility.