Early Life and Education
Suha was born in Jerusalem on 17 July 1963 into an affluent Christian family who lived in Nablus and then Ramallah (both cities under Jordanian rule at the time). Suha's father Daoud Tawil, an Oxford-educated banker, was born in Jaffa (now part of Tel Aviv). Daoud Tawil had business both in the West Bank and Jordan. Suha's mother, Raymonda Hawa Tawil, born in Acre, is a member of the Hawa family of Acre, prominent property owners in the Haifa area. She was a poet and writer. She became a politically active Palestinian militant after 1967 and was arrested several times by the Israelis, making her a media star. She was also a high-profile Palestinian journalist. Suha was raised Catholic. Suha, growing up in Ramallah, was influenced by the political activism of her mother conducted in the 1970s from her PLO-influenced news bureau in East Jerusalem.
Suha attended a convent school, Rosary Sisters' School, in Beit Hanina, Jerusalem. At age 18, she went to Paris to study, where she lived with her older sister, who was married to Ibrahim Souss, the PLO's then-ambassador to France. As a student, Suha was a leader in the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) in France, where she organized demonstrations for the Palestinian cause.
Read more about this topic: Suha Arafat
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“The Americans never use the word peasant, because they have no idea of the class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved among them; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“It may be that the ignorant man, alone,
Has any chance to mate his life with life
That is the sensual, pearly spouse, the life
That is fluent in even the wintriest bronze.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“I note what you say of the late disturbances in your College. These dissensions are a great affliction on the American schools, and a principal impediment to education in this country.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)