Palestine: Memory, Identity, Resistance 

BRICUP Seminar Series 2023-4 

All seminars are on-line events and take place at 18.00-19.30 London time. They consist of a presentation by the guest lecturer, an exchange with a discussant, and then questions and contributions. All participants are expected to read a short extract of the relevant text in advance, around which the discussion will revolve. Advance registration is necessary. 

One State!
Dr. Ghada Karmi
author, medic, activist
Thursday 9th November 2023
18.00-19.30 (GMT)
19.00 CEST Europe; 20.00 EET in ME;
14.00 EST & 11.00 PDT in USA

The remorseless colonisation of the West Bank through illegal settlements, the disaggregation of the territory, continuous pressure to force Palestinians into exile, and the isolation of the Gaza Strip since 2006, have now rendered a two-state solution impossible, if it was ever desirable. Yet the genocidal bombardment of Gaza and the Israeli Government ambition of expelling the population into the Egyptian Sinai, and Israeli state-protected killing of Palestinians and the depopulation of villages in the West Bank, appears to render a one-state solution both infeasible and undesirable. Citing the Palestinian sociologist, Salim Tamari, in her latest book, Ghada Karmi, observes that many analysts see no constituency on either side for a one-state solution, … the Israeli state’s established institutions and Zionist consciousness, as well as the material advantages its citizens enjoyed from exploiting Palestinian land and resources, would not be given up lightly; and Palestinians would resist the inevitably inferior position of their community … (and abandoning) their struggle for independence and the end of colonial occupation …One State! The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel (Pluto Press 2023), p.130
In this seminar, Dr. Karmi will reflect on how recent events in Gaza and the West Bank have affected her argument. Born in Jerusalem and exiled in the Nakba, Ghada Karmi trained as a medical doctor in the UK before establishing the first British-Palestinian medical charity in 1972. An Associate Fellow at the Royal Institute for International affairs, her previous books include The Palestinian Exodus 1948-99 (Ithaca Press 1999), In Search of Fatima (Verso 2002), Married to Another Man (Pluto Press 2007), and Return (Verso 2015)

 

REGISTER FOR THE SERIES HERE