Karl Sabbagh was born in Worcestershire, England in the early 1940s. His father was the Palestinian Christian broadcaster Isa Sabbagh, at the time working for the BBC Arabic Service;[1] his mother, born Pamela Graydon, was English, of American and Irish parentage. His parents divorced soon after he was born, and his father later lived in the United States, but Karl (originally named Khalil after his grandfather) remained in England with his mother.