Ghada Karmi

Ghada Karmi (; born 1939) is a Palestinian-born academic, physician and author. She has written on Palestinian issues in newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian, The Nation and Journal of Palestine Studies.

Early life and education

Karmi was born in Jerusalem in 1939 to a Muslim family. Her father, Hasan Sa'id Karmi was Palestinian while her mother was Syrian; she was the youngest child with an older brother and sister. 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 and Muslims. Among the family friends and neighbors was poet Khalil al-Sakakini and his family. Her family fled Jerusalem for Damascus, Syria, in April 1948 after Israel stole her villa. The family eventually settled in Golders Green, in London, where her father worked for the BBC Arabic Service as a translator and broadcaster.

Academic career, activism and writings Karmi was formerly married to someone she described in 2002 as a "quintessentially English boy" from a farming family near Bath. The Six-Day War (Arab–Israeli war of 1967) led to the end of her marriage, as her husband and their friends were all on the side of Israel. She became a supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization,

Karmi is an associate fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, and a visiting professor at London Metropolitan University. 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 in 2007.

Israel and Palestine In an interview with Executive Intelligence Review (reprinted in Middle East Policy Journal), 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?"

At the Palestinian Return Conference held at SOAS in January 2011, Karmi referred to the creation of Israel as involving the dispossession and theft of a whole country: "The only way to reverse that is on the basis of rights and justice; that is the right of return of the refugees and the dispossessed and the exiles back to their homeland." She was then quoted as stating:"If that were to happen we know very well that that would be the end of a Jewish state in our region".

At a protest as part of the Global March to Jerusalem held in front of the Israeli Embassy in London on March 30, 2012, Karmi stated "Israel is finished". She further stated: "Today, we are here together because we know, we understand what Israel is doing to Jerusalem" and that Jerusalem "does not belong to Jewish Israelis or to Jews. We respect all religions but we do not allow one group to take over this wonderful city." According to Karmi, Israel does not deserve to continue as a state and that "We have no alternative but to act. The only way we can stop Israel is to act against it, against its interests, against its apartheid and policies."

In 2017, The Jewish Chronicle reported Karmi had said the word "untermensch", originally used as a description of Jews by the Nazis, could be legitimately used as a description of the relationship of Israel to the Palestinians at a conference held in Cork in the Republic of Ireland. Referring to an objection made against the use of the word, she said "about the use of the word 'untermesch'. Untermensch's equivalent in English is sub-human. And sub-human is how people in Gaza feel they are being treated by the Israeli army." According to her, the Jewish population in Palestine were "groups of foreign immigrants trying to behave as though they were indigenous" and "It is a foreign community who just turned up." The creation of Israel was "a stitch up from beginning to end" by the United Nations.

Selected bibliography Books

(with a contribution by Edward Said)

(from Dr Ghada Karmi's memoir, In Search of Fatima) (from Dr Ghada Karmi's memoir, In Search of Fatima)

Karmi, Ghada (2015). Return: A Palestinian Memoir. Verso.

Karmi, Ghada (2025). Murjana : a novel of medieval Baghdad. Interlink Books.

Articles

Derek Summerfield, Colin Green, Ghada Karmi, David Halpin, Pauline Cutting, 125 other doctors: Ghada Karmi (pro-boycott) Andy Charlwood (against the boycott):

Colin Green, Asad Khan, Ghada Karmi, Chris Burns-Cox, Martin Birnstingl, David Halpin, Derek Summerfield: