Personal Biography

I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon ten years after the creation of the state of Israel. Moved to the United States in late 1977, and has been active in various local and national political organizations. Co-founder of the Middle East Cultural and Information Center in San Diego (http://karamanow.org)  and served as the Secretary General for the US chapter of National Student Union. I wrote for many years a weekly opinion column in a newspaper, published on several websites and present on the question of Palestine. I have Post graduate degrees in Leadership, Global Management, and a BS degree in Civil Engineering.  I am a California registered professional engineer and have worked in the oil industry building cross country oil pipelines and on water infrastructure management.

I lived through the tumultuous period when the PLO took over the refugee camps in 1969 and during the most intense part of the Lebanese Civil war. I ran away from home to join the PLO when I was only 11 years old; I survived many Israeli raids on the camp and cheated death in one air raid in 1972; survived serious head injuries in Jerusalem in 1996 and worked with the UN in Gaza for part of 1997.

The Palestinian refugee camp, where I grew up, was destroyed completely in the summer 2007.