“It’s left me with a deep and simmering anger against the western powers who imposed this nightmare on us.”

Palestinian physician, author and Nakba survivor Ghada Karmi joins UNAPOLOGETIC to speak about how her life has been shaped by exile and how, as she tried to find a new home in the UK, she was confronted by experiences that enhanced her desire to reconnect with her Palestinian identity and eventually made her want to embrace a life where she lived in service of liberating Palestinians from Zionist occupation.

She also reflects on the current unfolding genocide in Gaza, what she calls Arab and western complicity and how this event will traumatise future generations of Palestinians

Chapters

0:00 Intro and context setup
2:00 Two Nakbas, 77 years apart
4:32 Predicting 7 October’s logic
8:09 Fleeing Jerusalem in 1948
14:46 Remembering home, dog, Fatima
17:29 Life as a refugee child
21:28 1967 war changed everything
27:19 Reclaiming identity through activism
29:16 Visiting her old home
34:04 Learning the deeper history
43:58 Zionism’s effect on region
44:54 Arab states and complicity
55:57 The one-state vision today
1:09:00 Final reflections

Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, joins UNAPOLOGETIC for a wide-ranging conversation about who has been complicit for the genocide in Gaza, the global shift in rhetoric, and what it takes to organise 20 months of continous mass protest across the UK.

He unpacks the gap between what Western governments say and what they do - from condemning Israeli actions as “indefensible” while continuing to arm them, to criminalising peaceful protesters demanding justice. Jamal also reflects on his arrest and upcoming trial, the police’s systematic efforts to repress the movement, and why those tactics have failed to break the solidarity movement.

In deeply personal moments, Jamal shares the story of his Palestinian father, his own political awakening, and what it has meant to sustain this movement through exhaustion, grief and hope.

We ask: What does the future look like for Gaza? For Palestinian liberation? And for a world that has tolerated so much horror in real time?

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

03:12 Shifts in media and government

10:01 Words mean nothing without action

15:30 Divestment wins and public pressure

21:12 The arrest: what happened

27:03 How police target protests

32:47 BBC march and police trap

38:55 Criminalised for peaceful protest

44:11 Holding a movement together

49:35 Building a resistance community

54:20 Ben’s Palestinian family story

1:00:07 Organising through trauma and grief

1:05:05 Family, kids and solidarity

1:10:10 What happens to Gaza now

1:14:58 Will Palestinians be erased?

1:20:10 Movement grows through genocide

1:26:30 What keeps Ben going

1:32:10 Final reflections

What were the Crusades really about - and why do they still matter today?

In this deep-dive episode of UNAPOLOGETIC, historian and political scientist Professor Roy Casagranda comes back to the show to unpack the history, legacy and weaponisation of the Crusades.

We begin by exploring why Jerusalem holds such profound spiritual and political importance to Judaism, Christianity and Islam - and how that shared reverence resulted in periods where the city was pluralistic and multicultural, and other periods where it was subject to conquest, ethnic cleansing, colonisation and occupation.

From the First Crusade and the fall of Jerusalem, to the leadership of Salahuddin, to the devastation of the Mongol invasions, Roy walks us through a thousand-year arc of conflict, ideology and empire. But this isn’t just about the past.

We examine how the logic of the Crusades impacts our current political landscape and geopolitics. Was the partition of the Middle East by colonial powers after World War I an extension of the Crusades? What about the War on Terror, drone strikes and ongoing Western interventions in the Muslim world?

UNAPOLOGETIC is hosted by Ashfaaq Carim.

Chapters

0:00 Intro collage

3:00 Why Jerusalem matters

7:40 Jewish roots and the Temple

12:20 Rise of Christianity

17:00 Islam and early rule

21:40 Muslim rule of Jerusalem

26:20 What triggered the Crusades

31:00 The call to crusade (1095)

35:40 Norman warriors and motives

40:20 The first massacres

45:00 Taking Jerusalem (1099)

49:40 Crusader brutality revealed

54:20 Crusader states form

59:00 Muslim response builds

1:03:40 Zengi, Nur ad-Din and resistance

1:08:20 Rise of Salahuddin

1:13:00 Egypt campaigns begin

1:17:40 Salahuddin becomes wazir

1:22:20 The Fatimids fall

1:27:00 Power struggles with Nur ad-Din

1:31:40 Salahuddin unifies Syria

1:36:20 The peace treaty

1:41:00 Breaking the peace

1:45:40 Battle of Hattin

1:50:20 Retaking Jerusalem

1:55:00 The Third Crusade begins

1:59:40 Legacy of the Crusades

2:04:20 The fifth Crusade?

2:09:00 Zionism as settler project

2:13:40 Clash of civilizations

2:18:20 Anti-Arab hatred in the West

2:23:00 Demographic shifts and Gen Z