Hanan Daoud Mikhael Ashrawi (Arabic: حنان داوود مخايل عشراوي; born 8 October 1946) is a Palestinian politician, activist, and scholar.

Beginning in the 1990s, Ashrawi was a member of the PLO's Leadership Committee, serving as the official spokesperson of the Palestinian delegation during the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991.

In 1998, she also founded MIFTAH,[1] the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, and she continues to serve as head of its board of directors.

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.

[10] When the Six-Day War broke out in 1967, Ashrawi, then a 22-year-old student in Lebanon, was declared an absentee by Israel and denied re-entry to the West Bank.

Her past and present memberships include the following: U.S./Middle East Project (USMEP);[15] TAKREEM Arab Achievement Awards; Center for Transregional Studies "Advisory Council"[16] – Princeton University; Council on Foreign Relations – Washington D.C.; Deir Yassin Remembered[17] – New York; Fund for the Future of Our Children[18] – Washington D.C.; Initiative for Peace and Cooperation in the Middle East – Special project of The Search for Common Ground; International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty; International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA)- Stockholm, Sweden; Member of the UN Secretary General’s Group for Dialogue Among Civilizations; Mercy Corps International – WashingtonPeace Works – U.S.; Task Force on Higher Education (A World Bank, Harvard University and UNESCO initiative); The Carter Center (Human Rights Center); The Dialogue Center – The Netherlands; The World Bank Middle East and North Africa Region (MENA); United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD); Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy[19] (PIPD); The Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation[20] – Know Thy Heritage Advisory Board; CAABU – Honorary Patron; Beyond Conflict (formerly The Project on Justice in Times of Transition) – New York, U.S.; and the UN Women Executive Directors Civil Society Advisory Group.

[21] On 26 September 2009, in an interview on Riz Khan's One on One on Al Jazeera English, Ashrawi defined her current role in the following way: "I think of myself essentially as a human being with a multidimensional mission.

Ashrawi returned to the West Bank under the family reunification plan in 1973 and established the Department of English at Birzeit University.

She remained a faculty member at Birzeit University until 1995, publishing numerous poems, short stories, papers and articles on Palestinian culture, literature, and politics.

Her selection drew praise from Mary Robinson (former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and former President of Ireland), and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

[28] Activist Antony Loewenstein argued in his book My Israel Question that the Australian media, and various Jewish organizations, defamed and vilified Ashrawi in order to prevent her winning the Peace Prize.

"[30] Baruch Kimmerling, a sociologist from the Hebrew University, wrote, "As an Israeli, as a Jew and as an academic I am deeply sorry and ashamed that members of the Australian Jewish community are acting against this rightful nomination.