On Palestine with Ghada Karmi

Radicals in Conversation

Almost two months have passed since Hamas’s October 7th attack, in which it killed around 1,200 Israeli civilians. The retaliatory campaign that has been waged since then by the Israeli state against the Palestinian population—predominantly in Gaza, but also in the West Bank—has been nightmarish to behold. The latest estimates suggest as many as 15,000 people have been killed. For those of us who believe in the cause of Palestinian Liberation, how do we make sense of what is happening? And how can we act to stop it?

This month we’re joined on the show by Ghada Karmi. Born in Jerusalem, her family fled Palestine in 1948 during the Nakba. She has lived for several decades in Great Britain, where she trained as a Doctor of Medicine at Bristol University. She established the first British-Palestinian medical charity in 1972 and was an Associate Fellow at the Royal Institute for International Affairs. Ghada is also the author of the best-selling memoir In Search of Fatima and the new book One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel, which was published in 2023 by Pluto Press.

We discuss the history of Zionism, the Nakba and the creation of the state of Israel, and the situation in Gaza since October 7th. We also talk about the international response, the importance of language and framing in political discourse, and why any future political settlement must look beyond the rubric of a two-state solution.