Hanan Ashrawi, longtime aide to Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas, said on Monday that she had been refused a travel visa to the United States.
“It is official! My US visa application has been rejected. No reason given,” she wrote on Twitter. “Choose any of the following: I’m over 70 & a grandmother; I’ve been an activist for Palestine since the late 1960’s; I’ve always been an ardent supporter of nonviolent resistance.”
Ashrawi told the AFP that her daughter and grandchildren live in the United States, and that she travels to America three or four times a year. She said she has never before been denied a visa.
Ashrawi, a member of the PLO executive committee and former P.A. Minister of Higher Education and Research, has been a Palestinian spokesperson for the last 30 years.
In May of last year, following the transfer of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, Ashrawi told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that “the U.S. has dealt a serious blow, if not a death blow, to the peace process.”
“It has disqualified itself as a peacemaker or an intermediary,” she added.
On Sunday, Ashrawi took to Twitter to blast Trump administration peace envoy Jason Greenblatt, saying “this self-appointed advocate/apologist for Israel claims not only to know what’s good for the Palestinians, but also claims that he knows them better than they know themselves. Patronising, condescending hubris!”
The comment came after P.A. leaders preemptively rejected the Trump administration’s Mideast peace plan, following which Greenblatt told Fox News on Saturday that “if they fail to engage constructively and professionally to see if a deal can be reached, then shame on them.”
