UNAPOLOGETIC with Ashfaaq Carim

In this conversation with UNAPOLOGETIC, Imam Omar Suleiman reflects on two decades of global politics, the Palestinian struggle, Islamophobia in America, and the meaning of justice in a collapsing world order. Through personal stories of exile, family history, racism, 9/11, and spiritual grounding, he offers a deeply human account of how identity, faith, and political reality have shaped his life....

In this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC, we speak with journalist and historian Imran Mulla about his gripping new book The Indian Caliphate: Exiled Ottomans and the Billionaire Prince. The conversation uncovers a forgotten plot to relocate the Ottoman caliphate to India after its abolition in 1924 — a story involving exiled Ottoman royalty, the fabulously wealthy but austere Nizam of Hyderabad, British i...

In this UNAPOLOGETIC episode from the Doha Forum, investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill examines how Israel has carried out a campaign that many experts believe meets the legal and moral definitions of genocide in Gaza, while simultaneously insisting that Palestinians must not resist and that neighbouring states must demilitarise. Scahill situates Israel’s assault within a wider history of US mi...

Recorded at the Doha Forum, this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC is in conversation with political scientist Dr. Omar Ashour examines the shifting landscape of the Middle East through three major developments: Syria’s transformation under Ahmed Al-Sharaa, Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the widening regional divide illustrated by the UAE’s military support for separatist groups versus Qatar’s incre...

In this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC, political strategist and CEO and founder of the Cordoba Foundation, Anas Altikriti speaks to us about the history of the Muslim Brotherhood and why Trump is looking to now proscribe the organisation in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan. We examine how the Brotherhood evolved, why authoritarian governments frame it as a threat, and how Western policymakers adopted those nar...

Former South African ambassador to the United States Ebrahim Rasool sits down with Ashfaaq Carim for an unflinching conversation on power, punishment, and principle. Rasool explains how South Africa’s ICJ genocide case against Israel triggered U.S. retaliation—from tariffs to blocked HIV/AIDS funding—while dismantling the “white genocide” narrative pushed by Trump-aligned networks. He also traces...

In this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC, we speak to Dr Andreas Krieg — a leading Gulf security expert — about how the UAE has pursued an aggressive statecraft strategy since 2011. Andreas unpacks how Abu Dhabi has shaped the region through covert interventions, proxy forces and political engineering. From Egypt to Libya, Yemen to Sudan, we examine how the UAE has empowered secessionist, authoritarian and...

British journalist and commentator Sami Hamdi was detained by ICE for 18 days. He recounts here on UNAPOLOGETIC how he was arrested after being informed that his valid tourist visa had been suddenly revoked, and how he was eventually allowed to leave after a federal judge was concerned that there had been serious breaches of his freedom of speech. Hamdi describes in detail how he was arrested, wha...

David Adler - a Jewish American writer, activist, and organiser - joins UNAPOLOGETIC where he reflects on what it means to be Jewish in the age of Israel’s genocide on Gaza — and why silence is no longer an option. From his family’s divided Zionist and anti-Zionist roots to his experience being detained by Israel after joining the Summud Flotilla, Adler recounts how Jewish identity, power, and sol...

Unapologetic’s host Ashfaaq Carim speaks to Dr Roy Casagranda about what Zohran Mamdani's election victory means for the USA and it's political future

In this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC, peace negotiator Gershon Baskin takes us inside the Trump-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas — from backchannel talks with Hamas leaders to the Doha strike that nearly derailed the deal, and the moment Trump forced Netanyahu to apologize on camera. Baskin explains how the agreement came together, why it almost collapsed, and whether it can survive Netanyah...

Green Party leader Zack Polanski joins UNAPOLOGETIC to talk about his plans to stop the right wing’s rise in the UK. Just weeks after being elected leader — and as the Greens gain over 30,000 new members — Polanski speaks about the party’s growing momentum in a political moment defined by Reform UK’s surge and the launch of Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s Your Party. We discuss whether the Green...

Political scientist and historian Norman Finkelstein joins this special edition of UNAPOLOGETIC that marks two years since the October 7 Hamas-led attack and Israel’s devastating retaliation against Gaza, which the majority of genocide scholars around the world have labelled a genocide. In this nearly three-hour conversation, we ask whether Hamas regrets its actions, probe the realities of Trump’s...

Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, joins UNAPOLOGETIC to discuss his new book Righting Wrongs. Part memoir, part strategy guide, part global analysis, the book offers a rare inside look at how human rights advocacy really works. In this conversation, we explore how Roth built HRW from a team of just 60 people into a global organisation with more than 550 staff. He refle...

“An Israel for all its citizens has disappeared, it has literally been extinguished, and it's a myth that Israel is a nice friendly state” David Hearst, editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye, joins us on this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC to discuss what he describes as the ‘worst evil the world is witnessing’ in the 21st century. Hearst shares his views on why Israel’s genocide is not just intentional but...

Palestinian writer and analyst, Muhammad Shehada joins UNAPOLOGETIC in this special episode to explain how Israel's bombing of senior Hamas leaders in Qatar along with its order for 1 million Palestinians in Gaza city to evacuate once again to the South of Gaza has one common objective - to coldly and calculatedly make its ethic cleansing of Gaza inevitable.

"You have to think about people who are sitting in war rooms and plan the next bombing on civilians populations who are actually in tents in one place that they cannot move (from)" Al Jazeera has been at the center of one of the deadliest assaults on journalists in modern history. Since October 2023, Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 270 journalists, including at least 11 from Al Jazeera....

Muhammad Shahada grew up in Gaza during two decades of blockade and repeated wars. His father died after being denied medical treatment outside the Strip — one of countless lives lost to Israel’s permit system. Now a journalist and analyst, Shahada joins UNAPOLOGETIC to trace Gaza’s story from 2005 to 2025 — years that saw the removal of Israeli settlers, the imposition of siege, and the shift fro...

Orly Noy is the chairperson of B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organisation that has been documenting Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians since 1989. I n this episode, we discuss B’Tselem’s new report, titled ‘Our Genocide’. Through rigorous research, the report makes the case that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. We also discuss the sociological culture in Israel that has led to a s...

In this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC Professor John Esposito — one of the world’s foremost scholars on political Islam — unpacks 120 years of modern Islamic movements. From Afghani and Abdu’s 19th-century reformist vision, through Hassan al-Banna and Maududi’s activism, to Sayyid Qutb’s radical turn, we trace the intellectual and political forces that shaped the Muslim world. We explore the Iranian Rev...

“Every inch of that precious city is Rome and Paris and New York put together, and these barbaric savages go, ‘Oh Isfahan, we just bombed Isfahan’; they don’t even know where Isfahan is.” Hamid Dabashi, is an American and Iranian professor at Columbia University. He joined UNAPOLGETIC on this episode to give a scathing critique of US and Israeli adventurism and aggression in Iran and the region. D...

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges joins us on UNAPOLOGETIC for a conversation on what the consequences could be if Israel draws the USA into a full-blown war with Iran. Hedges reflects on his years reporting from war zones, the cynical nihilism driving Netanyahu’s assault, and how Israel’s genocide in Gaza has become a “spectacle” that has irreparably broken trust between North and So...

“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 e...

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”...

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...