"I'm a Full-Time Palestinian": Between Britain and Palestine | Ghada Karmi & Joris Lechêne

What does it mean to grow up in England, learn to be English and then spend a lifetime finding your way back to Palestine?

In this conversation, Palestinian writer, doctor and activist Ghada Karmi reflects on identity, exile, colonialism, memory and the long struggle for Palestinian liberation.

Speaking to Decolonial Scholar & Content Creator Joris Lechêne, she explores her identity as a child growing up in Britain, the moment in 1967 when watching her English friends cheer Israel forced her to confront her own identity, and the extraordinary story of the key to her family home in Jerusalem.

From there, the conversation moves into the politics of Palestine: Britain’s colonial responsibility, the transformation of Western attitudes towards Israel and Palestine, the role of propaganda, and the question of whether the two-state solution offers genuine justice, or simply a version of “peace” that asks Palestinians to remain “quiet”.

Finally, the two discuss her historical novel set in medieval Baghdad, and how reclaiming Arab history, culture, complexity and humanity can itself become part of the struggle against colonial erasure.