Rita Eleanor Hauser (born July 12, 1934) is an international lawyer known for persuading Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization to renounce violence in 1988.
from Hunter College in New York, after which she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship for graduate work in France, which eventually resulted in receiving a doctorate in political economy from the University of Strasbourg.
During her term at the UN, she helped Jewish immigrants leave Russia and visited Palestinian refugee camps throughout the Middle East.
[2] Hauser formerly chaired the International Peace Institute and was chair of the advisory board of the International Crisis Group, was elected in 2007 to the board of the Global Humanitarian Forum in Geneva, Switzerland, formerly chaired the American Ditchley Foundation, has served as a director of the RAND Corporation, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the New York Philharmonic Society.
[2] A self-described Rockefeller Republican,[4] Hauser supported Barack Obama in the 2008 United States presidential election.