Ghada Karmi (born 1939) is a Palestinian

Palestinian people

The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...

 doctor of medicine, author and academic. She writes frequently on Palestinian issues in newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, The Nation

The Nation

The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...

and Journal of Palestine Studies

Journal of Palestine Studies

The Journal of Palestine Studies is an academic journal established in 1971. It is published and distributed by University of California Press on behalf of the Institute for Palestine Studies. The current editor is Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University....

. She is a fellow and lecturer at the Institute of Arab & Islamic studies at Exeter University.

Early life

Karmi was born in Jerusalem, and in her 2002 autobiography, In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story, she describes growing up in the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Katamon, with its mixture of Palestinian Christians

Palestinian Christians

Palestinian Christians are Arabic-speaking Christians descended from the people of the geographical area of Palestine. Within Palestine, there are churches and believers from many Christian denominations, including Oriental Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholic , Protestant, and others...

 and Muslims. Among the family friends and neighbors was Khalil al-Sakakini

Khalil al-Sakakini

Khalil al-Sakakini was a Palestinian Christian, Arab Orthodox, educator, scholar, poet, and Arab nationalist.-Early life:Khalil Sakakini was born into an Arab Christian family in Jerusalem on January 23, 1878...

 and his family. With her family she was forced to flee in the 1948 Nakba. The family eventually settled in the neighbourhood of Golders Green

Golders Green

Golders Green is an area in the London Borough of Barnet in London, England. Although having some earlier history, it is essentially a 19th century suburban development situated about 5.3 miles north west of Charing Cross and centred on the crossroads of Golders Green Road and Finchley Road.In the...

, in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, where her father, Hasan Sa'id Karmi, worked for the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 Arabic service.

She studied and became a doctor of medicine, graduating from the University of Bristol

University of Bristol

The University of Bristol is a public research university located in Bristol, United Kingdom. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876.The University is...

 in 1964. Initially Karmi practised as a physician, specialising in the health and social conditions of ethnic minorities, migrants and asylum seekers. Since 1972 she has been politically active for the Palestinian cause and gained a doctorate in the history of Arabic medicine from London University.

In 1998 she visited her childhood home in Katamon for the first time since 1948.

She is an associate fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, and a visiting professor at London Metropolitan University

London Metropolitan University

London Metropolitan University , located in London, England, was formed on 1 August 2002 by the amalgamation of the University of North London and the London Guildhall University . The University has campuses in the City of London and in the London Borough of Islington.The University operates its...

. She is also vice-chair of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU)

She delivered the Edward Said Memorial lecture at the University of Adelaide

University of Adelaide

The University of Adelaide is a public university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third oldest university in Australia...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 in October, 2007

Statements on Israel

In an interview with Executive Intelligence Review, reprinted in Middle East Policy Journal, Spring 2010), Karmi stated that:

"There is actually nothing — repeat, nothing — positive about the existence of Israel, as far as the Arabs are concerned. You know, sometimes there are events, historical events, that happen against people's will. But, in time, they can find some positive aspect to something they didn't want to happen in the first place. This is not the case with Israel. On the contrary, as time has gone on, the existence of Israel has only increased the problems for the Arab region. It has increased the danger in the Arab world and is a threat not only to the security of the region, but the security of the whole world."

She also stated that:

"...Israel, from its inception in 1948, has been given the most wonderful opportunity to behave itself, and it clearly has not done so. It's flouted every single law, it's behaved outrageously, it's made a travesty of international and humanitarian law. On what basis should this state continue to be a member of the United Nations?"

She has been writing in favour of the one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...

 since 1990.

External links

• 15 May 2008, Interview on Democracy Now!
  Democracy Now!
  Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...