Word: hanan
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...next. They could draft an agreement in principle on the transfer of power to an interim government in the territories, then let working groups spell out the specifics. Palestinian negotiators would like this approach, and anticipate that Rabin's basic proposal for autonomy will be, in spokeswoman Hanan Mikhail-Ashrawi's words, "much more comprehensive and serious" than Shamir's. But they are looking first for some tangible gestures to set the right tone: a complete brake on settlements and an end to harsh occupation rules...
That is not what others say. One member of the peace team disparages even her p.r. success. "It's not the person telling the story that matters," he says. "It's the willingness of the world to listen." While Hanan is a member of the "higher committee" that determines Palestinian positions in the negotiations, her colleagues differ on how influential she is there. She does not have the automatic gravitas belonging to representatives of the various factions; on the other hand, her often sound advice follows no party line. Another delegate says she is just an "excellent packager." A third...
Sometimes the Americans find that convenient. She was publicly -- well, in a background briefing, which is about as public as Washington gets -- made the scapegoat for complaints that the Palestinians were paying more attention to the TV cameras and their constituents back home than to sound negotiating positions. Hanan did not take that lying down. She telephoned directly to the official involved, a very high-ranking man, and told him just how upset she was. "She took it personally," he says, but shrugs off her dismay...
...sometimes in the dark of night it hurts. At a televised press conference not long ago, after the Israelis announced plans to deport a dozen Palestinians, one of the wives unleashed a vicious diatribe against Hanan, blaming her for compromising with the enemy. When asked to comment, she said, "I understand her bitterness." But Hanan was shocked and deeply wounded, and she hated appearing to be rejected by her own people. "Why me?" she asked her husband that night. "What...
...blindingly plain fact about Hanan, the thing you cannot doubt, is her passion and compassion. She interrupts an endless day's work to receive two unexpected callers: Ramallah women she's never met before who seek her help to free their sons held in Israeli detention. "To me," she says, "this is the horror of it. This is why I do it." To have a nation is the only way to stop the wrenching apart of families, she says. There is no way you can question the authenticity of her commitment, the ferocity of her determination to bring the occupation...