Ghada Karmi is a Palestinian-born physician, academic, and writer whose life’s work has spanned medicine, political analysis, and powerful literary testimony. Born in Jerusalem in 1939, Karmi was just nine when her family was forced to flee during the Nakba in 1948 - the mass displacement of Palestinians during the creation of the Israeli state. Her family eventually settled in Golders Green, London, where she grew up navigating exile, cultural dislocation, and racism in post-war Britain.
Karmi trained as a doctor at Bristol University and later combined her medical career with political advocacy. In 1972, she co-founded Palestine Action, the first British-Palestinian medical charity, aiming to challenge British perceptions of Palestinians long before official Palestinian representation existed in the UK. She also served as an Associate Fellow at Chatham House (the Royal Institute for International Affairs), where she focused on Middle East policy.
Her memoir In Search of Fatima (2002) traces her family's exile from Jerusalem and is a moving account of the 1948 Nakba, the dispossession of Palestinian land, and the pain of displacement as her family attempt to put down roots in Britain. The sequel, Return (2015), recounts her journey back to occupied Palestine as part of a UN programme - a journey that leaves her questioning the very meaning of “return.” Her political writing, including Married to Another Man (2007) and One State (2023), presents a forensic critique of the Israeli-Palestine conflict and argues forcefully for a one-state solution rooted in justice and equality.
Karmi remains a prominent voice in Palestinian discourse, speaking candidly about the burdens of advocacy, the longing for home, and the complexity of identity in exile. As a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, she continues to challenge Western complicity and call for an honest reckoning with the legacy of colonialism in the region.
Her writing stands as a testimony to survival, political clarity, and the unyielding demand for Palestinian self-determination. We never set eyes on Fatima or our dog or the city we had known ever again. Like a body prematurely buried, unmourned without coffin or ceremony, our hasty untidy exit from Jerusalem was no way to have said goodbye to our home, our country and all that we knew and loved. -- Ghada Karmi, In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story