Hanan Ashwari
Why does Hanan Ashwari get a free ride from the American media?
This page exposes the lies, misinformation, and propaganda that Hanan Ashwari has consistently delivered. She is very intelligent and articulate, but that does not excuse the lazy media who do not challenge her statements or limit her access to their media channels.
If you will take the time to do even a basic investigation you will find that she is not just an apologist for Palestinian terrorism, but blatantly misrepresents the facts, the historical background, and the on-going situation.
Check out this well-researched presentation of the truth that Hanan Ashwari and her ilk do not want you to know. This information was developed by The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, a non-denominational, educational organization dedicated to truth in reporting.
Unfortunately, Hanan Ashwari has been given unprecedented access to news programs, the college campus lecture circuit, and even governmental meetings. She has been disproportionately influential, covering her distorted presentation with a possibly-genuine interest in issues such as womens' rights and the plight of children. But even if she honestly believes everything she says (unlikely given her education), she cannot be permitted to continuously bear false witness.
Even many Palestinians do not like Hanan Ashwari. She is an elitist Christian from a wealthy family, who never shared the Palestinian hardships she describes and claims to want to ameliorate. Her failures as a representative of her self-selected cause are well documented here:
As a close advisor to master-terrorist Arafat, and participant in many chapters of the "Peace Process" story, she is an architect of the current impasse she criticizes. Many Palestinians are beginning to wonder who she is really serving -- them or herself? She travels first-class from one luxury resort conference center or hotel after another to lecture everyone (with inaccurate propaganda) -- who benefits from this? She has had one title after another with the Palestinian organizations. What has she accomplished?
Despite this appalling record of lies and misrepresentation, failed policy initiatives, personal aggrandizement at the expense of her constituents, and over-all propagandistic advocacy worthy of Jos. Goebbels, she continues to be hosted by American media and speaking engagements on a regular, frequent basis. She is given a fawning reception as a "woman of accomplishment", a role-model and near-saint. Those of you who may be inclined to take her at face value owe it to your own intellectual honesty to investigate her real history and the facts behind her statements.
In her own words: Extremist statements by Hanan Ashwari. Can someone explain why the University of Virginia honored her as their Distinguished Alumna?
- Ariel Sharon to the Palestinians is a war criminal who's guilty of crimes against humanity, of a series massacres, thousands of Palestinians whether Shamran Shantilla refugee camps or Ribya massacre or the notorious 101 unit.[BBC "Breakfast With Frost" October 15th 2000]. Syndicated columnist Mona Charen says about this charge by Ashwari: "An Israeli tribunal investigated events at the Sabra and Shatilla camps during the Lebanese war and found that, while the killings were the work of the Christian militia, not the Israelis, Sharon bore some responsibility for not trying to stop it. When has any Arab tribunal so found regarding one of its own? Ashwari, meanwhile, has no problem serving a man, Arafat, who bears direct responsibility for the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians."
- There is still tremendous pain because we haven't ended the funerals and the period of mourning, over 100 Palestinians killed, brutally killed and, and thousands still in hospitals injured and in the Palestinians are still in a state of siege, every city, town, village and camp is being blockaded by Israeli tanks, we are still in a stage where we cannot even communicate physically with the outside world, a total blockade, a total siege and of course tremendous threat by the Israeli Army.[BBC "Breakfast With Frost" October 15th 2000] Palestinian casualties are the direct result of their own violence; every attack has been instigated by Palestinians not Israelis. Her overheated statements about the "state of siege" are a gross distortion of the steps Israel has taken to try to control the Palestinian violence.."
- I am a Palestinian Christian and I know what Christianity is. I am a descendant of the first Christians in the world, and Jesus Christ was born in my country, in my land. Bethlehem is a Palestinian town. So I will not accept this one-upmanship on Christianity.[Madrid Press Conference, 1991] This is nonsense. The first Christians in the world were certainly Jewish and moreover, most Palestinian Arabs arrived in Palestine from Egypt or Syria in the late 19th and early 20th centuries only after the early Zionists created job opportunities within the almost unpopulated Palestine.
- ...there was a systematic attempt at the expulsion of Palestinians through fear and intimidation. There was also a very conscious expulsion where people were herded off, were put in trucks and buses or were made to walk by force of arms, and where they were expelled. There was also a general atmosphere of fear, intimidation, threats of further massacres. The 418 villages that were totally demolished are still a very eloquent expression of this type of ethnic cleansing that has gone without accountability and with total impunity.[Speech to the press conference of the Council for Palestinian Restitution and Reparation] She is referring to events during the Arab war against the new State of Israel in 1948. Numerous historians have studied this issue. It is very well documented that non-Jews left Israel at the urging of the Arab leaders to clear the way for extermination of the Jews by the Arab armies. They were promised the spoils of war upon their return. Israel urged their non-Jewish inhabitants to remain. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled from Arab countries at the same time without justification or compensation for property.
This page has been visited 
times since 1 December 2001
