Ashrawi to be voice of Arab League

All smiles with Yasser Arafat - but Ashrawi is a critic of the Palestinian Authority's human rights record

By Heba Saleh in Cairo

The Arab League has appointed former Palestinian official and human rights activist Hanan Ashrawi as its spokeswoman.

Mrs Ashrawi, a deputy in the Palestinian parliament, will continue to reside in Jerusalem from where she will carry out her new task of explaining the Arab point of view to the world.

The appointment of Mrs Ashrawi as spokeswoman of the Arab League is an admission by the Arabs that Israel has been winning the propaganda war.

Articulate in both English and Arabic, Mrs Ashrawi is already a well known face on Western television screens.

Independent

Even more important for her new office, Mrs Ashrawi brings to it a reputation for independence.

Arab League headquarters in Cairo

She is an ardent defender of the Palestinian cause but also a vocal critic of the human rights practices of the Palestinian Authority.

Three years ago she resigned her ministerial job in the Palestinian executive.

Media image

Mrs Ashrawi says she wants to address the Arab and international media in a language devoid of slogans.

She also says her new job will be to counter what she described as the falsifications of Arab affairs practised by Israel and the Western media.

Arabs have long felt that they lacked a strong and co-ordinated approach to explaining their point of view to the world.

They have often railed against what they consider control by Jewish groups of the Western media, but they have done little to ensure that their views were heard.

The appointment of Hanan Ashrawi, a well spoken English literature professor, could be a first step in counteracting the image of Arabs as inarticulate, unshaven, gun toting warmongers.